Tommy Watson born circa 1935

Bears Irrunytju artist’s catalogue no. IRRTW03191, on the reverse

Painted at Wingelina, Western Australia for Irrunytju Arts in 2003
Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney
The Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands

Kleur Bekennen/Show your Colours, AAMU, Utrecht, 23 April 2009 - 27 September 2009
Aboriginal Art Today!, AAMU, Utrecht, 21 April 2010 - 1 November 2010

Georges Petitjean, Kleur Bekennen; exhibition catalogue, AAMU, Utrecht, 2009, p.12, illus
Georges Petitjean, Contemporary Aboriginal Art: the AAMU and Dutch collections, Snoeck – AAMU, Gent – Utrecht, 2010, p.77, illus

Unframed and mounted on a professional stretcher. Good order overall with no repairs or restoration.
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This work is sold with an accompanying Irrunytju Arts certificate, listing catalogue number IRRTW0319, and that reads in part, “This is Wipu rockhole. There are creeks, four creeks there and a lot of puli (hills, rocky country) as well. Ngayuku ngura (my home). This is a good place, this country. There is a big cave near here.”

Tommy Watson is an elder of the Pitjantjatjara people whose traditional lands lie on the edge of the Gibson Desert, in one of the most remote parts of the Australian continent. He was raised in the traditional manner, leading a semi-nomadic life learning the skills required for survival in a harsh environment, and the ancestral law that sanctified the land. Later in life, as with many of his male contemporaries, he became a stockman and worked on a number of cattle stations. He commenced painting for the market in his seventies, in 2001, when he resided at Wingellina, close to his country. Wipu, 2003, is a major early work by the artist. It depicts a site Watson is associated with through his maternal grandfather – he calls it ‘kangaroo country’ and ‘wipu’ means kangaroo tail in Pitjantjatjara. Watson was one of eight Aboriginal artists who were commissioned by the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris to create designs for the new building which opened in 2006; his is a ceiling piece–also depicting Wipu Rockhole–on the fifth floor of the building.

WC