Old Walter Tjampitjinpa, circa 1910-1981, WATER DREAMING

synthetic polymer paint on composition board  
bears Stuart Art Centre consignment number 19069A on the reverse  
92 BY 46CM  

Provenance: 
Painted at Papunya Tula in mid-late 1972 
Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs
Private collection 
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 9 July 2001, lot 194 
Private collection, USA  

Literature: 
Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon, A place made after the story; The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2004, p.186, ptg. 96 (illus.).

Geoffrey Bardon interprets this painting's imagery as follows: 'The dominating concentric circles is the special waterhole and the surrounding half-circles broken by undulating lines are the water mark on the earth itself from desert rain; the rain creates the pattern on the sand about the waterhole. At the bottom right of the design is a heavily disguised Ceremonial Man, dating the work mid to late 1972, also there are no ceremonial objects included. The featured brown line centre to bottom left has a unknown importance. The site is most likely Kalipinypa'.