13 August 1938 – 10 November 2019. By Ron May
Barbara Perry was a larger than life character, well known in Oceanic art circles in Sydney, and later in Brisbane.
Barbara Perry (née Hockey) was born in Dubbo and grew up on her father’s sheep station, Courallie, before boarding at the Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney. Following her mother’s death at a relatively young age, Barbara returned to Dubbo to help manage the property, but being an independent-minded young woman resisted pressure to become part of the local squattocracy.
While holidaying in Surfers’ Paradise in 1958 she met Ron Perry. The two became engaged the following year and married in Tucson, Arizona in 1960. They subsequently had two children, Michelle and Scott. After a brief period back on Courallie, the family moved to the Gold Coast before shifting to Sydney where they bought two cement-mixer trucks, which provided income for their later exploits.
In 1964, inspired by the visit of a friend who had just returned from Papua New Guinea with a small collection of artefacts and many anecdotes, Ron went off to PNG on his first collecting trip to the Highlands and the Sepik. From this Barbara and Ron entered the artefact trade.
Barbara made her first visit to PNG four years later and travelled with Ron from Madang to Wewak and Angoram and up the Sepik River to Ambunti. As a potter herself, Barbara took a particular interest in pottery. She made several later trips with Michelle and Scott, sometimes accompanying Ron on patrols in the Highlands and the Sepik, on one occasion breaking a bone in her foot on the Dreikikir airstrip.
In 1966 Barbara, with her father’s assistance, bought a house at Abbotsford on the Parramatta River. Ron spent time in PNG while Barbara looked after the artefact business as well as pursuing her many interests, including gardening and pottery.
In 1977 Barbara and Ron separated and in 1979 Ron went back to Tucson. Following their divorce, Barbara had control over a large collection of PNG art stored under the house in Abbotsford. Most of it was taken to a warehouse in Melbourne which subsequently burned down. Barbara continued to buy and sell both Papua New Guinea art and Aboriginal art (and with the PNG art was not above doing a little retouching where original paints had faded). She also invested wisely. Later Barbara moved to Brisbane, where she maintained an active interest in art and antiques. She was a person of wide interests and enthusiasm, a good cook, and a generous and memorable hostess.