Cooktown Elders admire a donated artwork depicting the Guugu Yimithirr Elder and warrior who reconciled with Captain Cook at the Reconciliation Rocks on 19 July 1770. Photo: Supplied.
A slice of Cooktown’s reconciliation history has returned home and is being admired by all thanks to a generous art donation.
On the 255th anniversary of Australia’s first recorded act of reconciliation, the community was presented with a series of Elizabeth Guzsely originals which depict Cooktown’s historic Indigenous figures and histories, including the Guugu Yimithirr Elder and warrior who reconciled with Captain Cook at the Reconciliation Rocks on 19 July 1770.
The works were donated to the Cooktown Re-enactment Association by Peter Pamphilion on behalf of his brother Rick, who passed away earlier this year, and now hang proudly at the Waalmbal Birri Heritage and Culture Centre.
Mr Pamphilion explained that Rick, who lived in Cooktown in the 1970s, was gifted the artworks from his wife, who was good friends with Elizabeth Guzsely, every wedding anniversary.
“Those sketches were a pride of place in his lounge,” he said.
“When he died earlier this year in March, I went up there as executor and was cleaning up his house, and I admired them, and a friend of his told me about the paintings and who did them.”
Mr Pamphilion said Rick was a well-known personality on Cape York, having run the airport in Coen after his time in Cooktown, until he retired and moved to Cairns.
Although his brother did not tell him what to do with the paintings, he believed Rick would have wanted them to be returned to where the history was made.
“I thought it might be nice to donate them to a gallery up in Cooktown in Rick’s name, so I made some inquiries, and they welcomed them,” he said.
“I just couldn’t sell them; they were sitting there and I thought they need to be somewhere where they’ll be appreciated.”
Rick Pamphilion was a well-known Cape York personality with an appreciation of Elizabeth Guzsely’s reconciliation artworks. Photo: Supplied.
