Title
Lungkata's two sons at Warlugulong
1976
Artist
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Australia
circa 1932 – 21 Jun 2002
Language group: Anmatyerr, Central Desert region
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Details
- Other Title
- Lungkata's Two Sons at Warlugulong
- Place where the work was made
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Papunya
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Northern Territory
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Australia
- Date
- 1976
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- synthetic polymer paint on canvas board
- Dimensions
- 70.5 x 55.0 cm board
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Mollie Gowing Acquisition fund for Contemporary Aboriginal art 1996
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 308.1996
- Copyright
- © Estate of Clifford Posum Tjapaltjarri. Licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd
- Artist information
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Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was born on Napperby Station about 200 kilometres north-west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Like many other Anmatyerr people, his family moved to the east region of their country following the Coniston Massacre of the mid-1920s. Tjapaltjarri's mother also raised Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri, whose own mother was a victim of the massacre. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri started his working life at diverse stations across Central Australia, where he acquired his impressive linguistic repertoire of six Western Desert languages, including his native Anmatyerr, and a 'little bit English'. He refined his skill as a woodcarver while continuing to work as a stockman.
Tjapaltjarri joined Papunya Tula Artists in February 1972 and was one of their founding directors. He rapidly distinguished himself as one of the company's most accomplished and inventive artists, an exponent of striking, multi-layered and meticulously rendered visual effects. He was chosen by Papunya Tula Artists to paint, with his brother Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, the large canvas that became 'Warlugulong', 1976, for a BBC documentary, 'Desert Dreamers'. The painting exceeded in size and narrative complexity anything hitherto produced by the Papunya painters. Its striking central fireburst depicts the Fire Dreaming site where Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's mother, Long Rose Nangala, was born. Warlugulong was one of the high points in the two brothers' artistic collaboration over the years, and also the first in Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's renowned series of monumental canvases of the late 1970s, which have been likened to vast encyclopedic 'maps' of his Tjukurrpa country.
Tjapaltjarri was chairperson of Papunya Tula Artists during the early 1980s. In 1988, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London organised a retrospective – it was Tjapaltjarri's first solo exhibition and the first time an Australian Aboriginal artist had been honoured in this way by the international art world. Over the next decade he would become the most widely travelled Aboriginal artist of his generation and an ambassador for Aboriginal art around the world.
In 2002 Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia '... for service as a contributor to and pioneer of the development of the Western Desert art movement, and to the Indigenous community through interpretation of ancient traditions and cultural values.'
Vivien Johnson in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004
© Art Gallery of New South Wales
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Places
Where the work was made
Papunya
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Exhibition history
Shown in 5 exhibitions
Gamarada, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 Nov 1996–16 Feb 1997
Australian Collection Focus: Warlugulong 1976, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 May 1999–27 Jul 1999
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Retrospective, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 31 Oct 2003–26 Jan 2004
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Retrospective, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne, 23 Mar 2004–03 May 2004
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 May 2004–18 Jul 2004
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Retrospective, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 07 Aug 2004–24 Oct 2004
Country Culture Community (2008-09), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 Nov 2008–19 Apr 2009
The streets of Papunya, Galleries UNSW, Paddington, 05 Sep 2015–07 Nov 2015
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Bibliography
Referenced in 5 publications
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Edmund Capon AM, OBE, Steven Miller, Tony Tuckson, James Scougall, Mollie Gowing, Harry Messel, Craig Brush, Ronald Fine, Alison Fine, Gordon Davies, Rosalind Davies, Christopher Hodges, Helen Eager, Rosemary Gow, Sandra Phillips, Daphne Wallace and Ken Watson, Gamarada, Sydney, 1996, 49 (colour illus.).
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Christine Hatt, Sydney - the inside story of Australia's largest city, 'Museums and art galleries', pg. 32-33, London, 1999, 33 (colour illus.).
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Vivien Johnson, Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, 'Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri', pg. 146, Sydney, 2004, 146 (colour illus.).
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Vivien Johnson., Australian Collection Focus: Warlugulong 1976, Untitled article by Hetti Perkins, unpaginated; 'The place of fire', Sydney, 1999, (colour illus.).
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Author Unknown, Sotheby's - Fine Aboriginal and Contemporary Art, 17 Jun 1996, 2 (colour illus.).
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