William Buckley: Rediscovered

William Buckley was a giant - six foot six in stockinged feet. But his story is even bigger.

Buckley escaped Victoria's first penal settlement in 1803 and lived with the Wathaurong people for the next 32 years. He gave himself up to John Batman's party at Indented Heads in 1835, only to become embroiled in the controversial and sometimes violent early settlement of Port Phillip.

Over the decades and into modern times, Buckley has become a figure of reconciliation, and his legend has been re-interpreted by many Australian visual artists, including Frederick Woodhouse, Oswald Rose Campbell, Henricus van den Houten and the Aboriginal artist known as Tommy McRae in the nineteenth century, and Sue Anderson, Rod Carmichael, Philip Davey, Juan Davila, Robert Drummond, Geoff Lowe and Jan Senbergs in the twentieth.

William Buckley: A Physical Description

A Bibliography

Checklist of works in the exhibition