George Ward Tjungurrayi Art for Sale and Sold Prices

b. 1947 -

George Ward Tjungurrayi was born around 1947 in the Western Desert near the remote West Australian community of Tjukurrla. His father had died when he was young, and it was not until his teenage years that George first met with white settlers. This meeting occurred when a welfare patrol encountered his family group which had camped by a desert waterhole.

George Ward Tjungurrayi later travelled east to the government settlement at Papunya. There he worked as a fencer and a butcher in the community kitchen. He married Nangawarra, and moved to Warburton, then Docker River, Warakurna and finally to the newly established outstation at Kintore.

George Ward Tjungurrayi began painting in the early 1990s at Kintore. In 1998 with the passing of his brother, famous Aboriginal artist Yala Yala Gibbs, a founding member of the Papunya Tula desert art movement, a degree of important cultural responsibility passed across to George. He developed a distinctive painting style with dense parallel line structures marked out with shimmering rows of dotting.

George Ward Tjungurrayi’s large scale works depict the ancestral desert narratives relating to the country west of Kintore and the region around Lake MacDonald. Often the stories describe journeys taken by the Tingari ancestors as they moved through the landscape, transforming into the structures of the landscape.

Japingka Gallery has exhibited George Ward Tjungurrayi’s paintings and the artist’s work has been included in a number of exhibitions including-

2013 Landmarks and Law Grounds: Men of the Desert
2012 Heirs and Successors
2006 Luminaries of the Desert
2004 Travels of the Tingari – New Pintupi Works

A selection of paintings by George Ward Tjungurrayi is available from Japingka Gallery, where collectors can buy Aboriginal art online with certainty of quality, authenticity and provenance of art works.