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This year marks fifty years since the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) acquired a group of seventeen Pukumani graveposts from the Tiwi people of Melville Island. The poles were commissioned and funded by Dr Stuart Scougall, art patron and orthopaedic surgeon, in conjunction with Tony Tuckson, then the gallery's deputy director. The beautifully carved and painted posts traditionally ease the passage of the deceased into the afterlife. As the first large commission of Aboriginal art for a public art collection, the posts changed the future of the gallery's collection and opened up an ongoing dialogue between the institution and Indigenous artists and their work.

Margaret Tuckson - who accompanied her husband on the 1958 journey (as well as the subsequent 1959 trip to Arnhem Land for a commission of Yirrkala barks) - returned to Melville Island in April this year with the AGNSW to revisit the community that embraced this pioneering moment in Australian art history. During their travels, Hetti Perkins, Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at the AGNSW and Jonathan Jones, artist, curator and Co-ordinator Aboriginal Programs (AGNSW) took the opportunity to ask Margaret about her memories of the original trips and how the Pukamani and bark acquisitions fared at the AGNSW.

Hetti Perkins: So, what was Tony's first encounter with Aboriginal art? Or yours?

Margaret Tuckson: I can remember Tony coming home to dinner one night and how excited he was after seeing a 1949 exhibition at David Jones's Art Gallery. He told me how fantastic the bark paintings were. He was very impressed with their way of painting as well as the imagery. He wouldn't have talked so much about the brushstrokes then as he did later on, having watched them do that marvellous swoop they do - one line with a thin, thin brush. He was especially interested in how they didn't worry too much about the borders. If they found that something didn't quite fit, they might go over.

HP: Dr Scougall had been visiting Arnhem Land communities every year since 1954. Tell us about your meeting him and how the first trip came about.

MT: Apart from the barks and works on paper that the gallery were given after the Mountford expedition in 1956, Tony had collected a few things before that by going to commercial art galleries and auctions that were dealing with Aboriginal art.

Somebody had said to Dr Scougall [Scoug], 'You should go and see Tony Tuckson at the art gallery because he is very interested in Aboriginal art and beginning to collect some'. They became good friends pretty quickly ...

HP: How long was the first trip?

MT: I think it was two weeks. We flew to Darwin and spent one night in a hotel and then Scoug organised a small plane to take us over to Melville Island ... I remember a lot of beautiful bush and sights of the sea between. Then arriving at Snake Bay [Milikapiti] and seeing some of the posts already carved and painted was very exciting! ...

HP: How many posts were already finished?

MT: Only about four. I think there was some initial feeling of disappointment that there weren't more but it proved to be the most marvellous thing because we could then go in the truck with them to watch them select suitable trees, chop them down, bring them back, and see Bob One Apuatimi start to shape them. We saw the whole process and photographed it.

HP: So was it one artist in particular carving the poles?

MT: I don't know if Bob One cut the shapes of all of the posts but I just happened to photograph him. After the bark was stripped off the tree, a fairly low-temperature fire was made. First he would blacken the whole log and then he would cut through the shapes. So the uncut parts would still be black.

The artists would then rub the outer part with a gumleaf to seal the surface. One day I found one of the fellows rubbing the outside with a big cake of Sunlight soap. I asked him about it and he said he couldn't be bothered going to get the leaves and that soap worked just as well. So at least one of your posts at the art gallery has soap underneath the paint!

HP: So, was this the first time the artists were making work that wouldn't be used on the island?

MT: I'm pretty sure it was the first time. When Scoug went to ask them, that was the main point he had to make: 'Would you make us some posts even though somebody hasn't died and they won't be going around a grave?' A whole group - or unity as he liked to call it. A unity of posts ...

HP: After Melville Island you next went to Yirrkala in 1959.

MT: Yes, again it was all generously funded by Scoug. Tony and I stayed with the agriculturist Doug Tuffin and his family. After we arrived we were taken down to the freshwater creek area and over a little bridge and along the beach to the cashew-nut tree, which was the shade area where they painted.

HP: So, you met Wandjuk then?

MT: Yes, Wandjuk Marika and his father Mawalan Marika, and Munggurawuy Yunupingu. He's the one I remember best - just watching him paint and everything about him. First of all there was a lot of fuss going on and it turned out that they didn't think Dot and I could watch the painting of the barks. Scoug had warned us that women were not allowed to watch certain paintings. And then thank goodness the news came through that they'd said, 'Oh, they're only white women' so we were allowed to go. But no Aboriginal women or kids were allowed anywhere near that special area ...

HP: When Pedro Wonaeamirri came to Sydney more than a decade ago, he saw the Pukamani poles. He was so excited to see them and immediately recognised the artists. They inspired him to make the Pukamanis in 1999 for 'Australian Perspecta' at the gallery.

MT: It's marvellous having those posts of his. Some people say, oh they're not really traditional anymore. I say for heaven's sake, what part of the world has stayed in one tradition? ...

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Spring 2009 issue.