Artist Unknown

Private Collection, acquired directly from the artist at the Heavitree Gap Caravan Park, Alice Springs in 1972

Sotheby's, Melbourne, July 9, 2001, lot 257, consigned by the above

Fiona Brockhoff, Melbourne, acquired at the above auction

This painting was acquired directly from the artist at the Heavy Tree Gap Caravan Park, Alice Springs, in 1972. According to the individual who originally purchased the board in 1972, there had been a gathering of senior traditional men from Alice Springs and Papunya at the Park, after which she was offered this and other works for purchase.

A distinct feature of this painting is the treatment of the corners of the support which have been cut off the original rectangular board. In the very early years of the introduction of the acrylic painting medium at Papunya, very few artists had had the experience of painting on regularly shaped, rectangular supports preferred by non-Indigenous painters. In traditional milieux the artists at Papunya were accustomed to painting on the ceremonial ground, on people’s bodies, and an oval shaped ritual objects and shields. In order to attempt a replication of the shape of painting supports to which they were accustomed, artists cut off the corners of rectangular boards to make them ‘appear’ more like shields and similarly shaped objects.

For similar examples, see Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Water Dreaming, late 1972, in the John and Barbara Wilkerson Collection, in Benjamin, R. and Andrew C. Weislogel (eds), Icons of The Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya, New York, 2009, p. 144, plate 36; Timmy Payungka Tjapangati, Corroboree Site Two, c.1973, in the Peter Fannin Collection at the National Gallery of Australia, in Perkins, H. and H. Fink (eds.), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, in association with Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, 2000, p.30; and Walter Tjampitjinpa, Untitled (Kalipinypa), 1972, in the collection of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, in Scholes, Luke (ed.), Tjungunutja: From having come together, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 2017, p.107.