Attrib. TJAMPITJINPA, Kaapa Mbitjana (Aboriginal 1926-1989) 'Snake Dreaming,' c.1980s. Inscribed verso as artist 'Kaapa', area 'Papunya'. Acrylic on Canvas Board 29.5x44.5cm
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa 1926-1989 Emu Dreaming Acrylic on canvas board c.1988; Mary Macha, Subiaco, Western Australia; acquired in 1993; The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica
KAAPA MBITJANA TJAMPITJINPA (1926-1989) Warlukurlangu, Site of the Blue Tongue Lizard Man's Fire c.1978 synthetic polymer paint on canvasboard inscribed verso with artist's name, title and date 60.9 x 45.7cm PROVENANCE: The Collection of Ken Colbung Mary Macha, Perth The Kelton Foundation, United States of America, acquired 1993
KAAPA MBITJANA TJAMPITJINPA (1926-1989) Yala (Wild Potato) Dreaming at Warlukurlangu 1987 synthetic polymer paint on canvas inscribed verso with Papunya Tula Artists cat. no. K871048 and unknown cat. no. 821424.V 91 x 60cm PROVENANCE: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs The Christensen Fund, San Francisco, cat. no. CC06769 (label verso) Sotheby's, Melbourne, Fine Aboriginal and Contemporary Art, 17 June 1996, lot 336 The Kelton Foundation, United States of America
KAAPA MBITJANA TJAMPITJINPA (1926-1989) Sweet Potato (Yala) Dreaming 1979 synthetic polymer paint on linen inscribed verso with artist's name, date, Papunya Tula Artists cat. no. K790520 and Avant Galleries cat. no. 635 60 x 91.5cm PROVENANCE: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Avant Galleries, Melbourne The Kelton Foundation, United States of America, acquired 1994
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa (Aboriginal, circa 1926â1989), Rainbow Water Dreaming pester paint, house paint, and enamel on canvasboard, 1972, signed, titled, dated, and inscribed on the reverse, retains gallery labels to framing, in wooden floater frame with silk backing and window on the verso. Board Size 12 x 16 in.; DOA 18 x 22 in. Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, an Aboriginal artist who worked in the modernist style, is often credited as the founder and the first master of the Contemporary Indigenous Australian Art movement in Central Australia. He was born west of Napperby Station in the 1920s and was of Anmatyerre, Warlpiri and Arrernte heritage. The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia describes Kaapa's artwork saying: "Kaapa's work, with its pictorial elements and seductive delicacy of detail, is cultivated to appeal to the western gaze. It also recreates the dramatic spectacle of men participating in ceremony and creates an illusion of the third dimension." Kaapa's work is present in major national and international museums, such as the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; the National Museum of Australia, Canberra; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania; and others. The Australia Gallery, New York John Webber Gallery, New York Additional high-resolution photos are available at www.lelandlittle.com
"SYDNEY" PRINT, KAAPA TJAMPITJINPA (AUSTRALIA, 1926-1989). Lithograph on paper, signed and dated 1944 on mat. Partial title on plate. City on hillside. Framed, 18"h. 22"w. overall.
KAAPA TJAMPITJINPA (c.1926 – 1989) WARLUGULONG, 1976 synthetic polymer paint on canvas board DIMENSIONS: 91.0 x 60.5 cm PROVENANCE: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, Northern Territory (cat. K761263) Private collection, Victoria This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs which states in part: ‘Warlugulong is a site associated with a number of Anmatjera and Walpiri mythologies. It is situated approximately 300 km northwest of Alice Springs. This board depicts the details of several legends. The central legend being of a great bushfire that started this place.’
"SYDNEY" PRINT, KAAPA TJAMPITJINPA (AUSTRALIA, 1926-1989). Lithograph on paper, signed and dated 1944 on mat. Partial title on plate. City on hillside. Framed, 18"h. 22"w. overall.
KAAPA MBITJANA TJAMPITJINPA (AUSTRALIAN, CIRCA 1920-1989) YALA AT YARIBILONGU Synthetic polymer on board: 10 x 15 in. Framed Provenance: Private Collection
According to Geoffrey Bardon, this painting is an interesting formalisation of the component elements of the Water Dreaming that include men in caves, rain, clouds, rainbow, running water, waterholes and underground water. Kaapa persistently integrated body decoration motifs of the Ceremonial Man into his paintings on hardboard. The undulating lines represent falling rain, the two U shapes the Water Dreaming Ceremonial Men sitting at the Dreaming site, Mikanji, near Mount Dennison, which is shown by the large concentric oval with radiating lines. The other ovals and concentric circles represent waterholes and are associated with both sand painting and body decoration. The intensive overall patterning and waves show the heavy rain that splashes onto the sand and flows across the land surface into rivers that will run further into the desert, to soak underground. The two Water Ceremonial Men have power and custody of these rockholes and the underground water that is found by digging; the dark spiralling line across the centre of the painting is the rainbow after the storm.
Kaapa Tjampitjinpa (1920-1989) Bushfire Dreaming Acrylic on Canvas Tribe: Arunda Area: Papunya Settlement, NT Dated Verso: Jan 1977 Provenance: Photo of Artist with work Stretched & Framed 79 x 125cm
KAAPA TJAMPITJINPA (1920-1989) Bush Orange Dreaming 1979 acrylic on canvasboard PROVENANCE: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, cat. no. K790804 (accompanied by certificate of authenticity) Private collection, Melbourne 60 x 50cm
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 WILD POTATO (1975) synthetic polymer paint on artist board 61 X 50CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Private Collection, Alice Springs The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 WILD POTATO (1975) synthetic polymer paint on artist board 56 X 45CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Private Collection, Alice Springs The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 WILD POTATO (1974-1975) synthetic polymer paint on artist board 45 X 55.5CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Private Collection, Alice Springs The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 BUSH FIRE (1973) synthetic polymer paint on artist board 60.5 X 45CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Bruce McElroy, Northern Territory (stock no.20) Bortingnon Kalamunda Gallery of Man, Western Australia The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 UNTITLED (1973) synthetic polymer paint on artist board 30.5 X 25.5CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory H.L. Naphali, Alice Springs The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne
Attributed to Kaapa (Mbitjana) Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 ALPAR (COOLAMON) (CIRCA 1973-1974) synthetic polymer paint and natural earth pigments on carved softwood 58 X 26CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Private Collection, Northern Territory The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne This coolamon is likely to have been painted by Kaapa Tjampitjinpa for it bears the Ahakey (Bush Plum) design with which he was associated. The black stripes represent the juice from the fruit flowing over the land. John Kean 1. The author was an Art Advisor to the Papunya Tula Artists, July 1979-December 1979 during which the painting of carved artifacts flourished.
Kaapa (Mbitjana) Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 CORROBOREE AND BODY DECORATION (1972) natural earth pigments and bondcrete on composition board 41 X 20CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory The Collection of Geoffrey Bardon, Sydney The Collection of Mrs Margaret Carnegie AO, Melbourne and Sir Roderick Carnegie AC, Melbourne The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Aboriginal Paintings from the Central Australian Desert, Corpus Christi College, Melbourne, 8 May 1988 Bicentennial Aboriginal Art Exhibition, Lauiston Girls School, Melbourne, 7 October 1988 Aboriginal Art & Spirituality, The High Court of Australia, Canberra, Parliament House, Canberra, The Exhibition Gallery, The Waverly Centre, Wheelers Hill, Victoria, The Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, Victoria, 1991-1992 Papunya Tula – Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 18 August – 12 November 2000 Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne, 30 September 2011 – 12 February 2012 Aux Sources de la Peinture: Aborigène, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 9 October 2012 – 20 January 2013 LITERATURE Rosemary Crumlin, Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Dove Publications, Victoria, 1991, p. 77 (illustrated) Hetti Perkins and Hannah Fink, Papunya Tula – Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2000, p. 66 (illustrated) Judith Ryan and Philip Batty, Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2011, p. 110 (illustrated) QANTAS Magazine, October 2011 Judith Ryan and Philip Batty, Aux Sources de la Peinture: Aborigène, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 2012 PROPERTY FROM THE ANTHONY & BEVERLY KNIGHT COLLECTION
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 HONEY ANT TRAVELLING DREAMING (1971) natural earth pigments and bondcrete on composition board 61 X 29CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory (April - May 1971) The Collection of Geoffrey Bardon The Collection of Mrs Margaret Carnegie AO, Melbourne and Sir Roderick Carnegie AC, Melbourne The Anthony Knight OAM & Beverly Knight Collection, Melbourne LITERATURE Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon, Papunya - A Place Made after the Story: the Beginnings of the Western Desert Movement, Miegunyah Press, 2004, p.207 (illustrated)
Dancing Ceremonial Men bears the date 26 September 1972 together with the number 37 on the reverse (obscured by frame) synthetic polymer powder paint on composition board 76 x 6.7cm
Kaapa Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 WARLUGULONG (1976) synthetic polymer paint on artist board 90 X 60CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs (stock K761263) Private Collection, Victoria This painting is sold with a Papunya Tula Artists certificate that reads; 'Wargulog (sic) is a site associated with a number of Anmatjera and Walbiri (sic) mythologies, it is situated approximately 300km north west of Alice Springs. This board depicts the details of several legends. The central legend being of a great bushfire that started at this place. Lungkata, the blue tongue lizard man, had rested at this site. His two sons, following behind, speared a kangaroo, cooked it, and greedily ate it. The father wondering why his sons were away so long, suddenly sensed what had happened. Determined to punish them, he blew on the fire stick until it glowed, then touched it to a bush which then exploded into flame. The fire furiously burnt everything in its path. The tongues of flame flicked out, as do all lizards' and snakes' tongues to this day. Soon the brothers were fighting the flames. They broke branches and beat at the fire, but always the front leapt beyond them, forcing them back. Eventually they perished, and the fire lost its fury and died. The painting also tells of a wallaby ancestor who mistakenly came to this place and of a goanna who travelled through this area on his way to Yarribilangu. This goanna grows continually as he travels, from a creature smaller than most goannas of the area, he grows to the proportions of contemporary alligators.' PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, VICTORIA
Kaapa Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 BUDGERIGAR DREAMING (1972) synthetic polymer paint on composition board 47.6 X 31.8CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory (1972) Museum Art International, South Australia The John Kluge Collection, United States of America (1995) By descent Private Collection, United States of America LITERATURE For three closely related examples see: Geoffrey and James Bardon, Papunya: A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, pp. 278-279, paintings 211-214 (illustrated) The series of Budgerigar Dreaming boards painted by Kaapa Tjampitjinpa in the winter of 1972 provide insight into the aesthetics of Anmatyerr ceremony. The subtle progression from one image to the next shows the artist experimenting with the arrangement of key ceremonial objects within the constraints of the rectangular format, searching for the energetic symmetry that best expresses a ritually correct composition. The Budgerigar Ceremony, to which the series relates, forms a part of the maliera grade rituals performed for the education of post-initiate men. It is this level of ceremony that stimulated the majority of paintings produced in the first decade of the Western Desert art movement. The situation broadened in the mid 1980s when the women of Yuendumu, Balgo and Utopia began to represent their parallel ceremonial life on canvas. Essentially the artist has positioned the incised boards, decorated poles and string crosses of the Budgerigar Dreaming on a red-ochred ground (the compacted earth of the ceremonial area) in such a way as to represent their ritual function. Geoffrey Bardon remembers Kaapa's focus on the Budgerigar Dreaming series as he 'industriously applied himself with the compulsion of a driven creative person'. (1) Kaapa's Budgerigar Dreaming series provides a rare window into one man's intellectual exploration of the formal potential of desert art. Highly symmetrical and perfectly executed Kaapa's paintings embody the exertions of memory and mnemonics that lies at the heart of desert culture. The Budgerigar Dreaming series can only be compared with the Honey Ant Dreaming sequence painted by Kaapa's cousin, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and embarked upon in the first half of 1972. (2) Together Kaapa and Leura have mapped the rectangular format, dividing it along its central axis to divine its essential geometry and so identify possible harmonic proportions. John Kean (1) Geoffrey and James Bardon, Papunya: A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, p.280-281 (2) Ibid. p. 334-337 OTHER NOTES GST is applicable to hammer price of this lot PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE JOHN W. KLUGE COLLECTION, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Kaapa Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 UNTITLED (1972) synthetic polymer paint on composition board 91 X 31CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs (stock 19094) Probably the Centre for Aboriginal Artists and Craftsmen, Alice Springs Dr. Elizabeth Sommerlad and Prof. Christopher Duke, United Kingdom (1975) Dr Elizabeth Sommerlad and Professor Christopher Duke worked with and visited many Aboriginal communities in the 1970s. Sommerlad's doctoral work on tribal Aboriginal education in the Northern Territory involved residence and work at Kormilda College and work in Arnhem Land as well as Central Australia in the late 1960s. She joined Duke who became the founding Director of the Australian National University Centre for Education, Canberra in 1969. The Centre did much of the pioneering work with Aboriginal communities in support of the then new policy of community selfdetermination throughout the 1970s, with the Northern Territory Department, the Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs and increasingly with different Aboriginal communities and other movements. This involved work with and visits to traditional, government and mission settlements in the Centre and Top End of the Northern Territory, including Papunya, as well as Aboriginal communities in locations in South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia. Sommerlad spent several months living at Hermannsburg in the Centre and Galiwinku (then Elcho Island) in Arnhem Land. From time to time they bought paintings from the communities. Sommerlad bought the present work along with lot 1 from an Alice Spring Art Gallery (presumably the Centre for Aboriginal Artists and Craftsmen on Todd Street) in 1975. D'lan Davidson Kaapa Tjampitjinpa was producing meticulous depictions of ceremony before the now famous Honey Ant Mural was painted on the wall of the Papunya Special School in July 1971. Kaapa had initially learned to paint in the watercolour style of Albert Namatjira but was not satisfied with the constraints of representational landscape, devising instead an original schema to describe the ceremonies that told of the creation of the land. Always the entrepreneur, Kaapa sold his carvings and paintings doorto- door to non-Aboriginal residents and had them displayed for sale at the Papunya store. Events accelerated in September 1971, when Jack Cooke (Patrol Officer, Department for Aboriginal Affairs) decided to enter four of his paintings into a competitive art exhibition in Alice Springs. The local art establishment was startled when Kaapa's Men's Ceremony for the Kangaroo, Gulgardi, was announced co-winner of the Caltex Art Award. The prospect of achieving some economic independence became a catalyst for other men to search out materials and take up the brush. Within a month of Kaapa's award the school teacher, Geoffrey Bardon, began the now famous cooperative that included men from several language groups meeting in the 'Men's Painting Room'. Put simply, Kaapa was the restless, earthy and enterprising character whose innovative works on salvaged hardboard initiated the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. (1) Kaapa's prescence was recognized in Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2011-2012. The first painting that visitors encountered on entering the exhibition was his Gulgardi (Araluen Arts Centre). After 40 years of Papunya Tula Art, Kaapa's comprehensive and authoritative ceremonial depiction stood out as the most significant painting in an impressive array of 200 early boards. (2) The first years of painting at Papunya saw a remarkable flowering of imagery and stylistic experimentation, as artists from a wide swathe of country explored how to represent their creation stories in the new, portable media. They drew from every facet of their rich visual culture. It is now apparent that every consignment that left the community had a particular flavour, as the artists were inspired by and emulated each other's innovations. The current work has the hallmarks of Consignment 19. Kaapa remained at the forefront of the formidable group that assembled in the 'Men's Painting Room'; his gravelly bass a constant during the singing of the songlines that cross the country west to east and north to south. Kaapa's leadership was recognized in November 1972 when he became the first chairman of Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. The present work was painted in the winter of 1972. This was a moment of transition, when the first exhibitions of art from Papunya were presented in Darwin and Adelaide and as approaches to painting were borrowed freely between the painters, before individual artistic styles were cemented. The current work is consonant with paintings by the artist (Bush Tucker, Water and Fire Story 1972, Aboriginal Art, Sotheby's Australia, Melbourne, 26 June 2000, lot 64), Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra, (Untitled [Rainbow and Water Dreaming] 1972, Aboriginal Art, Sotheby's Australia, Melbourne, 24 June 2002, lot 171) and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (Two Snakes at Alinittiti 1972, Aboriginal Art, Sotheby's Australia, Melbourne, 26 June 2000, lot 111). It is apparent that these men worked in close association with each other, as they painted the related sites along shared songlines: Water, Possum, Mala (hare wallaby), Yala (bush potato) and Emu. Despite his easy sociality and larrikin streak, Kaapa was a rigorous Lawman. His paintings were deliberate constructions of pictorial elements, each representing an aspect of the totemic landscape and its celebration in ceremony. During the first half of 1972 Kaapa stripped back the most explicit realistic elements that had characterized his earlier 'ceremonial tableaux', employing instead a cryptic language where linear elements were set in tension with a ground of dynamic decorative infill. Kaapa's painting exemplifies the formal symmetry of Anmatyerr men's painting. The current work is a rare example of a short-lived phase in his artistic journey. It can be safely assumed that the current painting is a schematic representation of a malierra ceremony enacted for the education of post-initiate youths. The painting's major iconographic elements are set around a perfectly executed set of (black) concentric circles that simultaneously represent a key site in the landscape and the focal point for the celebration of the associated totemic ancestor in ceremony. The four white crescents at the board's cardinal points represent the ancestor(s). Plants, animals and people have totemic ancestors. The abundance and distribution of the sets of smaller black circles suggest that the subject is an ancestral plant, perhaps a type of fruit, whose continued presence is assured by the enactment of the associated ritual. Kaapa was a custodian of the 'Bush Plum Dreaming' a subject that he depicted in a variety of forms throughout his career and it is most likely that this is a representation of the 'increase' site associated with the plant. It is likely that the dotted bands are a schematic representation of the topography in the vicinity of the 'increase' site. Kaapa has employed a comparable schema in a number of his paintings; see The Winparku Serpents 1974 (Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth) where dotted bands represent the sandhills over which the snake Jarapiri travelled. (3) The dynamic u-shapes that dominate the composition are more difficult to interpret but are stylistically consistent with the bold mirrored forms that came to typify Kaapa's most accomplished works of the mid 1970s. The ceremonial ground thus defined is framed by a rhythmic system of delicate curved crescents. Kaapa and his peers experimented with this style of decorative elaboration in the winter of 1972, the period immediately before the dotted field became the defining attribute of Papunya Tula painting. The métier suited technically adept artists such as Kaapa, Clifford Possum and Long Jack Phillipus. The paintings they produced during this period being amongst the most graphically accomplished works of Desert Art. John Kean (1) For a full account of Kaapa's role at the genesis of the movement see: Vivien Johnson, Once upon a time in Papunya, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010, pp. 11-43 (2) For a biography of the artist see: John Kean, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa in Judith Ryan and Philip Batty (eds), Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2011, p. 104-110 (3) Michael O'Ferrall, Tjukurrpa - Desert Dreamings Aboriginal Art from Central Australia (1971-1993), Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1993, p. (?) OTHER NOTES GST is applicable to hammer price of this lot THE PROPERTY OF DR. ELIZABETH SOMMERLAD AND PROF. CHRISTOPHER DUKE, UNITED KINGDOM
Kaapa Tjampitjinpa circa 1920-1989 UNTITLED (1972) synthetic polymer paint on composition board 88.5 X 12.2CM PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory (1972) Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs (stock 19[illeg.]2) Probably the Centre for Aboriginal Artists and Craftsmen, Alice Springs Dr Elizabeth Sommerlad and Professor Christopher Duke, United Kingdom (1975) Dr Elizabeth Sommerlad and Professor Christopher Duke worked with and visited many Aboriginal communities in the 1970s. Sommerlad's doctoral work on tribal Aboriginal education in the Northern Territory involved residence and work at Kormilda College and work in Arnhem Land as well as Central Australia in the late 1960s. She joined Duke who became the founding Director of the Australian National University Centre for Education in 1969. The Centre did much of the pioneering work with Aboriginal communities in support of the then-new policy of community selfdetermination throughout the 1970s, with the Northern Territory Department, the Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs and increasingly with different Aboriginal communities and other movements. This involved work with and visits to traditional, government and mission settlements in the Centre and Top End of the Northern Territory, including Papunya, as well as Aboriginal communities in locations in South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia. Sommerlad spent several months living at Hermannsburg in the Centre and Galiwinku (then Elcho Island) in Arnhem Land. From time to time they bought paintings from the communities. Sommerlad bought the work currently being offered for sale along with lot 21 from an Alice Springs Art Gallery (presumably the Centre for Aboriginal Artists and Craftsmen on Todd Street) in 1975. D'lan Davidson Kaapa was a humorist, renowned mimic and trickster who tested settlement authorities and Indigenous orthodoxy alike. (1) Despite his controversial character, Kaapa created some of the most scrupulously correct representations of men's ceremony, working with the precision of an anthropologist to record his own culture. Initially Kaapa painted comprehensive overviews of ceremonial enactment (The Ceremony at Waru 1971), before pulling focus to concentrate on the depiction of discrete components of the ceremony, (Corroboree and Body Decoration 1972). (2) The current work fits into the later series. The rounded ends, elongated form and overall dimension of the board emulate tywerrenge, the sacred objects believed to embody the living essence of the creative ancestors. The unadorned form of the core of the work further reflects the incised graphic elements typical of tywerrenge. Kaapa was a man of his time. He came into manhood in an intercultural world, working in stock-camps. His horizon was stretched beyond the parameters of his ancestral country, droving a mob of cattle to Mt Isa in Western Queensland. He was acutely aware of the intercultural world in which traditional Anmatyerr culture was embedded. Kaapa was determined to be an active agent in positioning himself and his people favourably in the changing dynamics of mid-century Australia. (3) So while the general form of the current work evokes the traditional allpowerful tywerrenge, Kaapa consciously produced the painting to sell to his constituency, an interested non-Aboriginal audience. The painting is bilaterally symmetrical along its long axis and a mirror image of itself across its width. Such symmetry is a highly valued quality of Anmatyerr men's painting; consider Kaapa's emblematic images of the Water Dreaming at Mikantji, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri's radial Honey Ant paintings and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's magisterial canvases of the early 1980s. While non-Aboriginal preferences in Aboriginal art have gradually shifted towards broad-brush expressionism, the exactitude of pattern evident in Kaapa's early work provides a window into traditional indigenous aesthetics. Although the austere iconographic elements that run through the centre of this work reflect the incised marks of a tywerrenge, the painting includes other elements. The larger u-shapes at the top and bottom of the work represent the key totemic figure(s), decorated for ceremony, with the adjacent, slender oval discs likely to represent sacred objects. The palette of orange (standing for red ochre), yellow (standing for yellow ochre) and white on matt-black background (standing for charcoal) recalls the four pigments applied to ceremonial performers and their accoutrements. The exquisitely executed looping crescents are a decorative innovation that dates this work to the middle of 1972, the period immediately before the dotted field became the métier of Papunya Tula Art. Kaapa was a driving force behind the instigation of painting at Papunya as well as being one of its most skilled practitioners. Early paintings, especially those produced on this potent attenuated format can be compared with 'museum objects', as well as to the later more expansive works on canvas. Paintings such as this current example provide compelling evidence of the evolution of Desert Art from traditional precedent into a contemporary form intended for circulation. John Kean (1) Vivien Johnson, Once Upon a Time in Papunya, A New South Book, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010, p. 26 (2) Judith Ryan & Philip Batty (eds), Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2011, pp. 107, 110 (3) For a biography of the artist see John Kean, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa in Judith Ryan & Philip Batty (eds), op. cit, pp. 104-10 OTHER NOTES GST is applicable to hammer price of this lot THE PROPERTY OF DR. ELIZABETH SOMMERLAD AND PROF. CHRISTOPHER DUKE, UNITED KINGDOM
Attributed to Kaapa Tjampitjinpa (1920-1989) Arangwanya (Wallaby Dreaming) (circa 1976) acrylic on board inscribed 'K 76309' on verso together with two works on canvas board by Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri (born 1925) 51 x 25.5cm and smaller (3)
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, circa 1926-1989, WARRU (WALLABY) ANCESTORS synthetic polymer paint on linen bears Papunya Tula Artists catalogue number 74403K on the reverse 203 BY 173CM Provenance: Painted at Papunya during April 1974 Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Private collectionThis painting is sold with a cop
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, circa 1926-1989, WILD ORANGE DREAMING natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on composition board 103 BY 71CM Provenance: Painted at Papunya in December 1971 Private collection Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 9 July 2001, lot 191 Private collection, USA Literature: Geoffrey
