Historic Pilbara strike photos uncovered and unveiled at UWA gallery
A trove of 1950s-60s photographs documenting the 1946 Pilbara strike has been discovered and is being shown for the first time at the University of Western Australia’s Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.
A collection of slides captured by anthropologist John Wilson in the 1950s-60s, depicting Aboriginal stockmen and women during the 1946 Pilbara strike, has been uncovered in a Fremantle attic and is now exhibited at the University of Western Australia’s Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery. The photographs illustrate the harsh conditions that led hundreds to walk off pastoral stations, their subsequent formation of mining and pearl-shell cooperatives under communist organiser Don McLeod, and the broader revolutionary movement on the margins of Australian society.
Curators Ursula Wilson and Sharon Coppin, daughters of former strike participant Captain Wilson, helped bring the images to public view, describing the workers as hardworking and resilient. UWA art history professor Darren Jorgensen highlighted the rarity of visual records from these camps, noting they were despised by governments and pastoralists. The exhibition aims to restore a forgotten chapter of Indigenous activism that preceded the more famous Wave Hill walk-off.
Why it matters
It reveals a largely unknown Indigenous resistance that helped shape Australia's civil-rights movement.
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