Tulo Gordon

Guugu Yimithirr
1918–89

Tulo Gordon was born in 1918 and was a member of the Guugu Yimithirr people of the Endeavour River area, north of Cooktown. The name Gordon derives from the name of a settler for whom his mother worked as a domestic servant. Tulo Gordon’s father was a stockman known locally as Old Charlie, and was one of the last of his people to remain on his homeland before goldminers, settlers and eventually police forced the community to relocate to Hopevale Mission.

Tulo Gordon spent his early life living with his parents, brothers and sisters in a bark shelter at an outstation called Spring Hill. There he was relatively free to explore and learn about his country. In the late 1920s he attended the mission school at Hope Valley (later Hopevale), where he began painting. In later life he lived on Aboriginal reserves at Woorabinda and Cherbourg, and met his wife while at Palm Island.

Tulo Gordon is an iconic figure in the history of Indigenous art from the Cape York area. He wrote and illustrated a children’s picture book, Milbi: Aboriginal Tales from Queensland’s Endeavour River, published in 1979, and spent a lifetime creating works of art that included wooden carvings, bark paintings, book illustrations and landscapes. Interestingly, he used his left hand to paint bark paintings but his right hand for landscapes, although the reason is not recorded. Tulo Gordon died in 1989.

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See also . . .

Learn about Bark paintings from the Hopevale community.
Learn about the community of Hopevale.
Tulo Gordon references.