Letter: Aboriginal painting

Sir: Regarding Dalya Alberge's piece on British artists' and contemporary Australian Aboriginal painting (20 July), Glasgow Museums were not the first British public collection to purchase such material.

The British Museum bought its first contemporary Aboriginal painting a decade ago, and others were acquired in 1986, 1987 and 1989. Some of these works were exhibited at the Museum of Mankind in 1988 while many institutions celebrated aspects of the Australian Bicentenary. Our collection from Yuendemu in the Northern Territory is probably the largest in the public domain outside Australia.

Yours faithfully,

BRIAN DURRANS

Department of Ethnography

Museum of Mankind

London, W1

(Photograph omitted)