Deaf Tommy Mungatopi circa 1925-1985 CORAL PHASES OF THE MOON

Most probably painted on Melville Island circa 1967
Private collection

The painting appears in very good condition overall. The pigments are stable and the colours strong. There is a small area of pigment missing (approx 1.5cm in diameter) in the lower right hand corner in the red pigment, and the bark is cracked and soft extending upwards 6 cm from the lower left hand corner. There have been some small areas of old restoration conservation carried out in the lower margins (probably to stabilise fraying of the bark and this now appears shiny).
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Cf. For similar contemporaneous paintings by the artist in the collection of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, see 'Moon, morning and evening stars', in Kathy Barnes, Kiripapurajuwi (Skills of Our Hands): Good Craftsman and Tiwi Art, Darwin: Kathy Barnes, 1999, p.43, illus.; and 'Sun shining on a coral reef', c.1970, in R. Crumlin, and A. Knight, Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Melbourne: Dove Publications, 1995, p.23, pl.4, illus.; the latter work also in Sandra Le Brun Holmes, The Goddess and the Moon Man: The Sacred Art of the Tiwi Aborigines, Sydney: Craftsman House, 1995, p.118, illus. under the title 'Full moon reflected in the sea in the country of Purakapali'.

The image in the painting, as with the Northern Territory Museum paintings and contemporaneous paintings of the same subject by the artist in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, is an evocative interpretation of light reflecting off the coral reefs on the eastern side of Melville Island where the ancestral drama of the coming of death amongst the Tiwi was played out. Here Purukuparli the apical male ancestor carried his dead infant son out to sea and drowned. The coral reefs are also the domain of Tiwi women as they collect shellfish found on the reefs at low tide (see Wally Caruana, Aboriginal Art, World of Art Series, London and New York:Thames and Hudson, 2003, p.93)

The artist is represented in most major public collections in Australia, including those mentioned above and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian Museum.