Makinti Napanagka circa 1930 - 2011

Painted at Kintore in April, 2004

Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, catalogue number MN0404127

Gabrielle Pizzi Gallery, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne

Unframed. Stretched on a high quality stretcher. No repairs or restoration. Very minor scuffing to the corners and edges. Overall the painting appears in excellent condition. There is one small piece of vegetable matter, possibly pitjuri (chewable native tobacco), stuck to the canvas approximately 8mm x 4mm, 25cm below and 8cm in from the right hand upper corner. This could be easily removed by a conservator should the buyer wish.
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Cf., Hetti Perkins, Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014, p.104 for discussion of the artist.

Hetti Perkins writes that, "Most senior practitioners of Western Desert art led a traditional bush life in their desert homelands until their first contact with white Australians as young adults. Napanangka’s life has followed the same course and, as with most Pintupi people, she returned to live close to her country at Walungurru (Kintore), a small Aboriginal community established during the outstation movement, more than 500 kilometres west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs).

Napanangka was a familiar presence at the Papunya Tula arts centre in Walungurru, often the first to arrive with her pack of camp-dogs to begin a day of intense painting. Even when her eyesight faltered, Napanangka’s enthusiasm for painting on canvas remained undiminished.” (ibid., p.104)

Following her death in 2011, Napanangka was posthumously honoured as a Member of the Order of Australia, and by her inclusion in the 18th Biennale of Sydney, All Our Relations. In his review of the biennale in the Sydney Morning Herald, Dylan Rainforth commented “It was left to recently deceased Western Desert artist Makinti Napanangka (1930-2011) to show what artists in this country are capable of. Her trio of untitled paintings at the MCA has a particular majesty and dignity that towers above other works.” (Sydney Morning Herald, July 4 2012, Bringing Together Pieces of Humanity, reviewed by Dylan Rainforth)

The accompanying Papunya Tula documentation reads: "This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Lapulnga south of the Kintore community. The Peewee (small bird) Dreaming is associated with this site. A group of women visited the site before continuing their travels north to Kintore. The lines in the painting represent spun hair-string which is used in the making of hair-belts worn during the ceremonies associated with the area, while the roundel is the rockhole of Lapulnga."