Tingari Dreaming Cycle, 2004

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

182 x 152 cm

Est. $15,000 – $20,000

Hammer $13,000

Provenance: Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD10050 Private Collection, Vic, acquired from the above Accompanied by certificate of authenticity from the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings
Artwork story: In October 1984 a group of seven Pintupi men from Kiwirrkurra went searching for a family they had not seen for years. They found them near the Western Australian border: two widowed mothers, their children and half-siblings, among them a young man of around twenty who had never encountered European society. Thomas Tjapaltjarri and his family became known to the world as the Pintupi Nine, the last people in Australia to make first contact with the outside. His father Lanti had made that choice deliberately, running from Balgo mission years earlier and keeping his family deep in their country on the western side of Lake Mackay. Thomas was born into that life and lived it until the day the seven men walked toward them. He began painting in December 1987, three years after settling at Kiwirrkurra, encouraged by his cousin Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, who had already begun to attract serious attention. Thomas and his brother Walala joined Papunya Tula Artists, and the three men became known internationally as the Tjapaltjarri Brothers. His designs derive from the body painting applied during Tingari ceremony, rendered in dotted lines of ochre, black and white across large canvases that seem to vibrate with controlled energy. The photographs accompanying this lot document Thomas painting this canvas on the floor at Kintore and standing beside it on completion. At 182 x 152 centimetres it is among the more ambitious works of his middle period. Three panels of densely worked concentric rectangular forms fill the canvas from edge to edge, the dotted lines running with extraordinary consistency across the warm ochre ground, the whole surface held together by a dark upper register of sky or country above. The scale and the sustained attention it required speak to a painter entirely at ease with the demands of large-format work.

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Sale 3 · Lot 79

Thomas Tjapaltjarri

c.1964 – 2024

Region: Western Desert
Community: Kiwirrkura
Language group: Pintupi

Tingari Dreaming Cycle, 2004

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

182 x 152 cm

Est. $15,000 – $20,000

Hammer $13,000

Provenance: Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD10050 Private Collection, Vic, acquired from the above Accompanied by certificate of authenticity from the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings
Artwork story: In October 1984 a group of seven Pintupi men from Kiwirrkurra went searching for a family they had not seen for years. They found them near the Western Australian border: two widowed mothers, their children and half-siblings, among them a young man of around twenty who had never encountered European society. Thomas Tjapaltjarri and his family became known to the world as the Pintupi Nine, the last people in Australia to make first contact with the outside. His father Lanti had made that choice deliberately, running from Balgo mission years earlier and keeping his family deep in their country on the western side of Lake Mackay. Thomas was born into that life and lived it until the day the seven men walked toward them. He began painting in December 1987, three years after settling at Kiwirrkurra, encouraged by his cousin Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, who had already begun to attract serious attention. Thomas and his brother Walala joined Papunya Tula Artists, and the three men became known internationally as the Tjapaltjarri Brothers. His designs derive from the body painting applied during Tingari ceremony, rendered in dotted lines of ochre, black and white across large canvases that seem to vibrate with controlled energy. The photographs accompanying this lot document Thomas painting this canvas on the floor at Kintore and standing beside it on completion. At 182 x 152 centimetres it is among the more ambitious works of his middle period. Three panels of densely worked concentric rectangular forms fill the canvas from edge to edge, the dotted lines running with extraordinary consistency across the warm ochre ground, the whole surface held together by a dark upper register of sky or country above. The scale and the sustained attention it required speak to a painter entirely at ease with the demands of large-format work.