Tony’s dramatic sculpture, featuring marble and steel bullets was unveiled recently ahead of this month’s Anzac Centenary.
Winner of last year’s Basil Sellers Art Prize and the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Tony thanked everyone who had helped to bring the artwork to fruition.
“Over the past two years I’ve embarked on an incredible journey to realise this artwork,” he said. “It has been an honour and a privilege to work with the Indigenous community on this incredibly important monument.”
The artwork was commissioned at the request of Redfern’s Babana Aboriginal Men’s Group, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Veterans and Services Association and the Coloured Digger Committee that jointly organises the annual Coloured Digger Anzac March in Redfern. It is the third artwork to be commissioned under the City of Sydney’s Eora Journey program, which also funded Reko Rennie’s “Welcome to Redfern”.
Tony Albert’s grandfather Eddie served in the Australian Army during World War II. Eddie and six fellow soldiers escaped from a prisoner of war camp in Germany, only to be caught by Italian soldiers who lined them up side-by-side to be executed. Three men were shot before the Italian soldiers realised their mistake; the men were POWs and should have been returned to Germany. Eddie and three other men survived.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said Tony’s artwork in Hyde Park South, near the Anzac Memorial would become a renowned gathering place for tributes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander diggers and their families.
The four standing bullets represent Eddie and the three other men who escaped execution by the Italian soldiers, and the three fallen shells represent the three men who were executed and made the ultimate sacrifice.
