Click to enlargeMick Namarari Tjapaltjarri
c.1926 – 1998
- Region
- Western Desert
- Community
- Papunya
- Language group
- Pintupi
Tingari, 1997
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
182 x 120 cm
- Provenance
- Yapa Art, NT
Kimberley Art, Vic
Accompanied by photographs of the artist creating the work
- Artwork story
- During a career that spanned almost three decades Mick Namarari became a towering presence, whose variety of subjects and diversity of stylistic approaches kept him at the forefront of Western Desert painting. Geoff Bardon noted his ability as a painter from the earliest days of the movement when he 'could often unexpectedly be found late at night working away at his meticulous and marvellous paintings' (Johnson 2000: 191). Much later, he was to play a quiet but decisive role in instigating the Papunya Tula art movement’s increasing ethereal minimalism of the late 1980’s and 1990's and in doing so significantly fueled the international reputation of Australian Aboriginal art, thereby earning himself an ‘incomparable place’ in Australian art history.