Lot 90: TIM LEURA TJAPALTJARRI CIRCA 1929-1984

KANGAROO AT RITJULNYA 1982

MEASUREMENTS

152 by 181 cm

Bears Papunya Tula Artists catalogue number TL820209 on the reverse
Synthetic polymer paint on linen

PROVENANCE
Painted at Papunya in February 1982 Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Gifted to the vendor by Mr John Truscott AO Collection of Miss Sheila Scotter AM MBE Cf. For an earlier painting on a similar scale and with an equally heraldic type of composition with lines radiating from large roundels see 'Kooralia', 1980, in the collection of the Art Gallery of the New South Wales, in Perkins, H. et. al., Tradition Today: Indigenous Art in Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004, p. 151, illus. and in Perkins, H. and H. Fink (eds.), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales in association with Papunya Tula Artists, Sydney, 2000, p. 79 Leura had a passion for mapping his country as is evident in his oeuvre; an activity made more urgent by his sense of loss and depression as he saw Aboriginal culture and ancestral lands being eroded as the influence of Europeans spread throughout the country. Kooralia and Ritjulnya are Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) sites around Napperby Station where Tim Leura was born and grew up. They appear in the comprehensive map drawn by Tim Leura and Geoffrey Bardon in 1971 of the artist's Tjukurrpa sites around Napperby (reproduced in Bardon, G., Papunya Tula: Art of the Western Desert, McPhee Gribble, Melbourne, 1991, pp.3 and 4; and again in Bardon, G. and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, p.58). Ritjulnya (spelt 'Riurn' on the map) is adjacent to Mara Mara where the ancestral Emu lives. Note the emu tracks leading to and from the central roundel in the painting 'Kangaroo at Ritjulnya' is one of a number of large, brooding ? even melancholic ? works created by Tim Leura in the latter part of his career. The patchwork of colours, in particular the use of colours mixed or layered with greys, blacks and white, creates a hazy, smoky effect - much like Leura's paintings of bushfires, and those of his brother Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Leura's technique of painting wet into wet so that the coloured dots would be absorbed into the black or darker colours of the ground enhanced this effect. Despite this atmosphere, the subject of this painting indicates the bounty of natural resources in the landscape. In this way the painting can be seen as a complementary work to 'Men's camps at Lyrrpurrung Ngturra', 1979, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia (illustrated in Caruana, W., Aboriginal Art, World of Art Series, Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 2003, p.125, plate 106) which laments the absence of big game such as kangaroo and emu as a result of the incursions of the pastoral industry This painting is sold with an accompanying Papunya Tula Artists certificate that reads; 'The Kangaroo Dreaming site of Ritjulnya west from Napperby Station is shown in this painting. The roundels with adjacent U-shapes show the hunters sitting at water-holes waiting to catch the kangaroos. All lines leading from the roundels show the tracks made by the men as they move about the area. The tracks of the Kangaroo are shown and the artist has also shown emu tracks'\