Lot 54: AURANGNAMIRRI WOMMATAKIMMI (YOUNG BROOK) CIRCA 1920-1973

BIMA C.1968

MEASUREMENTS

7 / 16 eight: 80 cm

Natural earth pigments on carved ironwood

PROVENANCE
Executed on Melville Island circa 1968 Jerome Gould collection, USA Sotheby's, Fine Tribal Art and Aboriginal Paintings, Sydney, 4 December 1994, lot 279 Private collection, Melbourne Cf. Barnes, K., Kiripapurajuwi (Skills of Our Hands): Good Craftsman and Tiwi Art, Kathy Barnes, Darwin, 1999; Berndt, R. M. and E. S. Phillips (eds.), The Australian Aboriginal Heritage, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1973; Holmes, S. Le Brun, The Goddess and the Moon Man: The Sacred Art of the Tiwi Aborigines, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995; O'Ferrall, M. A., Keepers of the Secrets: Aboriginal Art from Arnhem Land in the Collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1990; For a similar figure by the artist see 'Old Tiwi Woman', 1968, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, illustrated in O'Ferrall, 1990, p.35, plate 33, and in Berndt and Phillips, 1973, plate 174 Bima was the wife of the apical Tiwi ancestor Purukuparli. The couple had a new born child called Jinani. When Bima had an illicit relationship with Purukuparli's brother, Tapara the Moon Man, she neglected Jinani, who died. In his grief, Purukuparli carried his dead son out into the waves and drowned, thus bringing death to the Tiwi people