Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, circa 1932-2001, UNTITLED

synthetic polymer paint on canvas  
74.5 BY 89.5CM  

Provenance: 
Painted at Papunya in 1978 
Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs 
Private collection

The vendor of this lot knew the artist well and would camp with him and his family when she did her nursing rounds at Mt Liebig. She recalls that he showed her his Country, including secret waterholes, and that she repaid the favour by cooking him beef stew on a campfire.
 
When recently contacted about this painting John Kean (Papunya Tula Art Advisor, 1977-79) observed: 'The painting shows Warangkula painting with great strength and vitality, the grid of concentric circles humming, each set of circles with its own intensity of white dots. The background is classical Warangkula, varying colours and sizes of dots representing the mosaic of vegetation and bush fruits, that grow in response to fire and flood, (both stories for which he had responsibility). The irregularity of the dotted gesture characterised Warangkula's work, making him the foremost ‘landscape' artist of the Papunya Tula movement and this is a magnificent example of the period.
 
I suspect that the site is Kampurarpa, but I cannot be sure. If it were, the single set of footprints coming to the central circle would be the old man that later went west to Umari. The sets of footprints in the bottom right quadrant would be two women at the site of Kampurarpa a smaller hill to the north of Ilpili'."