Charli Tjaruru Tjungurrayi Art for Sale at Auction

Painter

(b Kintore, Australia, ca.1921;d Kintore, Australia, 1999) Australian Painter. Charlie Tarawa Tjaruru Tjungurrayi was a member of the Pintupi, an aboriginal group native to north-western Australia. Though he was born in northern Australia, near the present day city of Kintore, his parents were soon relocated to an area near Haasts Bluff and Hermannsburg. Charlie gained familiarity with Europeans trading with the Australian army during World War II. He ran a successful trading operation mounted on camels. In the 1970’s the schoolteacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged a group of Pintupi men to export aboriginal art for the European market. Because of his experience with European traders, Tjungurrayi was uniquely placed to act as the spokesman for the soon formed Papuyana Tula Artists’ group. Charlie went on to create Pintupi style paintings depicting primarily scenes from the tjukurpa; Aboriginal dreamtime stories. A retrospective of his work launched from the Orange Regional Gallery, New South Wales, in 1987 and went on to tour four Australian states.