TIM LEURA TJAPALTJARRI

Painted at Papunya in April 1972
Geoffrey Bardon Collection
Gifted to Georg Lindstrom by Geoffrey Bardon as a gesture of gratitude for the photography of paintings included in Bardon's first book on the Western Desert Art movement in 1979
Private collection, Sydney

G. Bardon and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, painting 279, p.336

The work is housed in a perspex case. The painting in very good and stable condition with a number of very minor scratches and scuffs and minor pigment loss, consistent with most early Papunya boards.
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This painting is sold with a four-page certificate prepared by Geoffrey Bardon, which includes a colour photograph, a schematic diagram and descriptive notes.
Bardon writes, 'Depicted with Anmatjira(sic) Aranda symmetry there is a stylistic Honey Ant nest in the earth and appropriate ceremonial sticks and bullroarers are shown for the Honey Ant Dreaming, the bullroarers and ceremonial sticks either anonymous of having no dangerous information upon them.

The Honey Ant theme was the principal dreaming and cross roads situation that existed at Papunya, of dreaming journeys by the spirit ancestors travelling east to west across the continent. It is possible that previous to my enquiry's in the art work the importance of the Honey Ant Dreaming at Papunya was unknown to the white community. Also the anthropological importance of Papunya Tula, the smaller of the two modest hills near Papunya was unknown.

Tim Leura was a traditional man who 'knew the law' for his language group and was to paint many versions of this Honey Ant ceremony. The version being discussed here shows the nest of the Ant in subtle diamond subdivisions, with configurations and ceremonial objects linked in differentiation from his many other versions, with the implied different meanings. It is part of the great Honey Ant Dreaming mural itself, that was to please all the language groups at Papunya at that time 1971-1974, (see: Papunya Tula - Art of the Western Desert , 1991, p.19) The mural achievement was to inspire the Western Desert art movement itself.

Tim Leura responded to the interaction with Geoffrey Bardon by painting to an ever-improving technical standard with high quality poster paint and sable brushes, also using acrylic paints. He was the only left handed artist and would hold a board across his knees sitting in his particular corner to the right as one entered the Great Painting Room; he wore a cattleman's hat a little high on his forehead and was a man of intense concentration when working. His grasp of the law allowed him to paint the most significant of designs, in the Anmatjira(sic) Aranda symmetry but used modifications in the information and discretion so as not to compromise himself, or harm those persons who were young and uninitiated or the women and girls in the traditional communities of Central Australia.'