Lot 65: Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi circa 1914-1987 UNTITLED synthetic polymer paint and natural earth pigments on composition board

synthetic polymer paint and natural earth pigments on composition board

50.5 by 35.5cm

A Myriad of Dreaming, Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art at Westpac Gallery, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne, 5-22 October 1989, cat. no.44
Annual Collectors Exhibition 2000, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, cat. no.86
Australian Modern: Arte Australiana Moderna e Contemporanea e Arte Aborigena, Fondazione Mudima, Milan, 23 April - 24 May, 2002

Lauraine Diggins et al, A Myriad of Dreaming, Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Melbourne: Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, 1989, cat. no. 44, p.47, illus.

Painted at Papunya in 1972
Alex Bortignon, Kalamunda Gallery of Man, Western Australia
Mrs Margaret Carnegie, Melbourne
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne
Private collection, Brisbane, 1989
Private collection

Cf. Hetti Perkins and Hannah Fink, Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2000, p.47, for a related example in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

This unusual example of the artist's work is amongst the finest he produced in 1972, during the fledgling years of the Western Desert art movement, where he creates an atmospheric effect that is more prevalent in the work of some of his contemporaries. The thick white dots of varying size that overlay the surface of this painting produce a highly tactile patchwork where the sets of concentric circles are allowed to stand out against the background. The circles represent specific places and camps in the artist's country in the Gibson Desert.

Shorty Lungkata was one of the last artists to join the Papunya painting group in 1971-72. At this time he was regarded as one of the senior Pintupi ritual men at Papunya, a great dancer and hunter. In his early work, he experimented with a variety of styles from plain linear images to more complex atmospheric compositions that feature layers of dotting. He also used a wide range of the conventional desert iconography. He is renowned for having produced some of the most exceptional paintings at Papunya and at the Pintupi outstation of Yai Yai.

This painting has been requested for inclusion in the forthcoming exhibition Origins which is being mounted by the National Gallery of Victoria to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. This exhibition is being curated by Judith Ryan of the National Gallery of Victoria, Dr Philip Batty of the Museum of Victoria in conjunction with Papunya Tula Artists, and will bring together the largest and finest collection of early Papunya paintings executed in the 1971-1972 period. It is intended that the exhibition will tour to one or more major international institutions after it finishes in Melbourne.