LONG JACK PHILLIPUS TJAKAMARRA

Painted at Papunya in late 1971 or early 1972
Consignment 8 painting number 30 to the Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne
Private collection, Michigan, USA
Sotheby's, Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 29 June 1998, lot 100
Private collection

A Myriad of Dreaming, 20th Century Aboriginal Art, Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, 18 September - 1 October 1989; Westpac Gallery, Melbourne, 4 - 22 October 1989

Diggins, L., A Myriad of Dreamings, 20th Century Aboriginal Art, Malakoff Fine Arts Press, Melbourne, 1989, cat.no. 50, pl.53, illus., Bardon, G. and Bardon J., Papunya, A Place made after the Story; The Beginnings of the Western Desert Paintings Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, p.404 Ptg.364 illus.

 

The pigments appear in good and stable condition and there appears to be no repairs or restoration. It is housed in a black wooden frame. There are minor water marks, scratches and scuffs and small areas of the pigment missing on the surface of the painting though it is likely that hese have been there soon after the paintings execution
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Cf. For early paintings of ceremonial scenes in a similar style by the artist, see Big Family Kangaroo Ceremonial Dreaming, 1971, Emu Dreaming, 1972, and Geoffrey Bardon's field sketch of Bush Wallaby Story, 1972, in Bardon and Bardon, 2004, p.220 painting 129, p.282 painting 221, and p.403 respectively, illus.

The painting represents a ceremonial scene comprising of sand paintings and objects organised in an ordered, symmetrical manner. The array of tracks of the two main characters within the ritual suggest Tjakamarra has designed the choreographic score of the ceremony: the large icons built around the three roundels down the middle of the painting represent the Hare Wallaby ancestors and their tracks, depicted as two chevrons separated by a bar, and juxtaposed to those of the Possum ancestors whose tracks resemble a four-pronged 'E'.