How an Indigenous Australian artist ‘astonished’ a giant of American art

Sol LeWitt never met Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who began painting in her 80s, but he was blown away by her work. A new AGNSW show celebrates their unlikely link

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He was one of the 20th century's pioneers of modern American art; she was the Anmatyerre artist who put Australian desert painting on the world stage.

Sol LeWitt and Emily Kame Kngwarreye never met, yet one had a profound effect on the work of the other, and led to one of the largest collections of Utopia art outside Australia. LeWitt became a huge fan of Kngwarreye, and of the distinct style produced by the Indigenous Australian artists working in Utopia, Northern Territory.