LOT 1

Where desert rain becomes light: a masterful late Water Dreaming on an epic scale.

Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula rose to prominence in the early 1970s with his celebrated depictions of Kalipinypa, painted in the aftermath of heavy rains that transformed the desert landscape. Geoffrey Bardon described these works as possessing a “tremulous illusion.” They marked the breakthrough of Papunya painting, when the expressive potential of acrylic on board and canvas was first realised. These early paintings secured Warangkula’s place as a leading figure of the movement, shaping its trajectory for decades and ensuring his position in the canon of Australian art.

By the late 1980s, Warangkula produced several monumental canvases for Papunya Tula and for private dealers. Works that appeared on the market include Rain Dreaming Site of Kalipinpa (100 x 200 cm), a version of Tjikari (183 x 122 cm, 1985), another Rain Dreaming (100 x 200 cm, 1986), and an untitled canvas relating to events at the Tjikari soakage (121.5 x 213 cm, 1988). Compared to those examples, this panoramic painting carries a greater narrative force: while the earlier late-1980s works often relied on bold coloured grounds, here the surface achieves a richer visual depth.

The background recalls some of Warangkula’s finest early- and mid-1970s boards – an effect that might initially seem almost too good to be true. Yet the hallmarks of his hand are undeniable: the loose, assured brushwork; the seemingly casual but deeply controlled composition; the dense rhythm of dotting. The refined passages of dotwork suggest the involvement of his wife, Gladys Yawintji Napanangka, herself a Papunya Tula painter whose large-scale canvases featured at World Expo ’88 in Brisbane. Far from complicating authorship, such collaboration reflects the kinship model central to Papunya Tula, sustaining the production of major canvases through the late 1980s. Gladys’ hand enriches the surface, amplifying its shimmering vitality.

Compositionally, the work fuses the energy of Warangkula’s early 1970s boards with the speckled, overlapping dot technique of his later canvases. Concentric roundels mark waterholes and ceremonial sites; ancestral tracks weave across the surface; fields of luminous dots evoke desert light after rain. At this scale, the composition channels the elemental drama of storm and water – motifs that defined Warangkula’s identity as both ceremonial rainmaker and artistic innovator. As Vivien Johnson has written, “Family is artistic destiny in the Western Desert” – a truth borne out in this collaboration between Johnny, Gladys, and possibly other family members.

The verso bears two inscriptions – “Johnny W 89” and “Johnny W Aug ’89” – in the hand of Rodney Gooch, the influential Utopia art adviser whose pivotal role in bringing Papunya and Utopia artists to international attention is well documented. Gooch’s involvement anchors the provenance, further supported by a Mulga Bore Certificate of Authenticity (stock number Aug 93–9) and financial records from Mary Reid Brunstrom’s Austral Gallery in St. Louis, including the original invoice. From there, the painting entered the private collection of Terence J. Gilbert in Albany, New York, where it has remained for over three decades.

Its international profile was confirmed in May 1998, when Architectural Digest (Vol. 55, No. 5) devoted its Arts section to “Aboriginal Dream Paintings.” Several galleries worldwide were invited to submit what they considered their strongest examples of Aboriginal art. The editors selected this work as the lead painting, reproducing it across a two-page spread. Its secure provenance, long-term ownership, and prominent exposure in one of the world’s most prestigious design publications enhance both its rarity and appeal.

As part of our due diligence, we sought the opinions of leading specialists with first-hand knowledge of Warangkula and the Papunya movement. Their responses were consistently affirmative, describing the painting as “magnificent” and “brilliant,” and recognising in it a fusion of the vitality of his early boards with the monumentality of his late canvases. One senior artist-scholar praised it as “a fantastic painting… a brilliant synthesis of the 1970s and 1980s.” Another confirmed without hesitation: “This is Johnny’s work, with all his characteristic quirks and idiosyncrasies.”

While the evidence strongly supports Warangkula’s direct hand in the painting, certain details invite caution. Some specialists have observed that the date, c.1989, sits uneasily with his style from that period, and that aspects of the iconography – particularly the continuous animal tracks, thought to represent mala (rufous hare-wallaby) – appear uncharacteristic of his usual treatment. According to Gilbert, former Sotheby’s specialist Tim Klingender described the painting as “magnificent” after seeing it reproduced in Architectural Digest around 2000, noting two comparable canvases in private collections but also raising concerns about Warangkula’s fragile health at the time and the four-year gap in provenance prior to Rodney Gooch’s promotion of the work through Austral Gallery in St. Louis. Taken together, these observations complicate the attribution, though they do not outweigh the affirmations of senior artists, scholars, and advisers with direct knowledge of Warangkula’s practice. In line with best practice in cataloguing, the work is offered as Attributed to Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, c.1989.

Comparable works reside in the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Ambitious late-career canvases of this kind seldom reach the market, most remaining in institutional or private hands. The market has consistently valued two bodies of Warangkula’s work most highly: the seminal Papunya boards of the early 1970s and the monumental canvases of his late career. This painting belongs firmly in the latter category. This major work – Water Dreaming (Tjikarri), c.1989 – unites commanding scale, refined execution, and secure provenance linking Rodney Gooch’s fieldwork to Austral Gallery’s pivotal role in presenting Aboriginal art to American audiences in the 1990s. With its luminous surface, narrative depth, and distinguished ownership, it represents a rare opportunity to acquire a painting of exceptional cultural resonance, artistic mastery, and market rarity.

Adrian Newstead

Kathleen Rose Roberts