Cooee Art | Indigenous Fine Art Auction | 8 March 2022

COOE E ART

auctions consultancy galleries INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION | SYDNEY | 8 MARCH 2022

AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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COOEE ART

COOE E ART

auctions consultancy galleries

AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION Tuesday 8th March 2022 7pm AEDT start 17 Thurlow Street Redfern NSW 2016

- AU C T IO N VIE W IN G 1st - 7th March 2022 | 10-6pm Tuesday 8th March 2022 | 10-2pm - T E LE P H O N E / AB S E N T E E B ID S email bids to auctions@cooeeart.com.au phone: +61 (0)2 9300 9533 bidding forms pages pp. 114 - 116 - LIVE O N LIN E B ID D IN G auction.cooeeart.com.au - E N Q U IR IE S auctions@cooeeart.com.au www.cooeeart.com.au +61 (0)2 9300 9533 AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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COOEE ART TEAM

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ADRIAN NEWSTEAD OAM Founding Director - Senior Specialist adrian@cooeeart.com.au | +61 412 126 645

MIRRI LEVEN Executive Director mirri@cooeeart.com.au | +61 416 379 691

A former President of the Indigenous Art Trade Association and Director of Aboriginal Tourism Australia, Adrian established the Aboriginal art department for Lawson~Menzies in 2003, later acting as Managing Director of Menzies Art Brands, which under his stewardship, became the market leader. The former President of the Art Consulting Association of Australia, Adrian curated Cooee Art Auctions’ first specialised sale in 2017. For more than 40 years Adrian has been a passionate advocate for Australian Indigenous and contemporary art and has written widely for books, art publications and newspapers.

Mirri joined Cooee Art in 2007. After extensive travel following her double degree in International Development and Fine Arts, and Masters degree in Art Administration from the UNSW College of Fine Art. In 2016, she became the CEO and co-owner of the company, spearheading the opening of Cooee Art’s Paddington gallery, and developing Cooee’s gallery program and the launch of its Auction wing in 2017. A former board member of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia, Mirri initiated and drove the move into Cooee Art’s vast Redfern Gallery and auction rooms in early 2021.

EMMA LENYSZYN Indigenous Art Auction Specialist emma@cooeeart.com.au | +61 400 822 546

MIA COLLIS Auction Administration auctions@cooeeart.com.au

Educated in Fine Ar t at RMIT, Emma joined Cooee Ar t in 2016 as the Paddington Gallery Manager. In 2019, she became the Auction Specialist for Cooee Ar t Auctions.

With a long history of employment in the arts, including positions at international institutions, commercial galleries, and private collections. Emma has an uncanny ability to match keen collectors with their ideal ar tworks.

Her extensive knowledge of Australian Indigenous art positions her as ideal bridge between sellers and buyers.

After living in London, Tokyo, Paris, and Tel Aviv, Mia studied at the University of Sydney in Ar t History and Economics. Following her passion for culture and ar t history, she was a decorative arts specialist at Shapiro Auctioneers in Woollahra, before joining Cooee Ar t’s auction depar tment. Mia brings both creativity and practicality to her role as Auction Administrator.

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COOEE ART TEAM

SAM RAMSDEN Art Handler

RENATA BRAK Digital Curator

The son of an ar tist and ar t critic, Sam has worked in galleries across Berlin and Sydney, including his first job at the legendary Galerie Eigen + Ar t in Berlin from the age of 13. Prior to joining Cooee Ar t, he worked at the legendary Ray Hughes Gallery in Sydney, which he managed in its final years before opening his own, The New Standard Gallery, which ran from 2016 to 2018.

Sam now acts as Cooee Ar t’s Ar t Handler.

Renata has a Bachelor of Fine Ar ts from the University of Tasmania, with a major in Graphic Design, and a Masters in Ar t Curatorship from the University of Sydney. Over the past decade, she has helped facilitate over 100 exhibitions nationally and internationally, and worked for a variety of commercial galleries, ar tist run initiatives, ar t festivals, and major ar t institutions, most notably the Museum of Contemporary Ar t. Renata first joined Cooee Ar t in 2011, returning in 2018 as their Digital Content Curator.

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COOEE ART AUCTIONS Welcome to our first Indigenous Fine Art auction of 2022.

We are delighted to have collected 103 significant Indigenous Australian artworks with a total value of $1,949,800 $2,645,500.

The sale includes a number of highly significant artworks.

Amongst them is Ginger Riley Munduwalawala‘s early Fishing and Hunting in Limmen Bight, 1987, estimated at $80,000100,000 (Lot 49). This rare piece comprises two separate paintings—respectively catalogued as GR4 (top half) and GR16 (bottom half), which would indicate they were the fourth and sixteenth paintings the artist ever completed.The painting was created in a softer palette than the artist’s later work, with the upper and lower portions depicting separate stories in comic-strip format. The narrative seems to flow from line to line.

Among many fine works, my personal favourite is far from the most valuable in the sale. Millie Skeen’s Nakarra Nakarra is a delightful work and is estimated at just $10,000-15,000.

Of all the senior women artists at Balgo Hills during the early 1990s, Millie’s art invariably demonstrates the verve and pride with which these women took to painting, thereby creating a distinctive art movement. Her works stand out - for both the beauty of their realisation and the intimacy of their execution - as exemplars for future generations of Balgo artists to emulate.

With Emily Kngwarreye currently showing at Gagosian Gallery in Paris, we are delighted to feature several lovely works, including the beautiful 1990 painting of Nrange, the sacred grass seed (Lot 30). It carries an estimate of $80,000$110,000 and was included in the exhibition Painters of Australia: Two Generations at Gagosian Gallery Hong Kong in 2020.

We are pleased to have secured another fine work by Albert Namatjira (Lot 34), carrying a wonderful backstory. Its former owner was the instigator of the famed Ampol Redex Trails, Terry Southwell-Keely, the former war correspondent who initiated the Walkley Awards.

. 8 MARCH 2022 Early Papunya boards include Charlie Taruwa’s Cave Dreaming and the very rare Possum Dreaming by Long Jack Phillipus, both of which were created in 1972 (Lots 35 and 36). Long Jack’s painting was ‘discovered’ in the studio of a deceased sculptor in British Colombia by a fellow artist who had no recollection of his friend having ever travelled to Australia. The painting features two sacred Tjuringas (or shields), representing the long journeys of the Possum spirit men.

Other magnificent paintings in this sale are the major works by Bill Whiskey (Lot 31) estimated at $70,000-90,000; Kathleen Petyarre’s Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming – Sandhill Country 1999, which featured in the artist’s retrospective exhibition at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary art in 2000 (Estimate $40,000-60,000); Paddy Japanangka Lewis’s 183 x 300 cm Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Lot 75), estimated at $80,000-120,000; and Tommy Watson’s wonderful Iyaka, 2015 (Lot 55) which has been repatriated from France and carries a presale estimate of $70,000-100,000.

There are so many other pieces worthy of fine collections.

The sale includes lovely artefacts from the Central Desert, Arnhem Land barks and poles, several excellent Tiwi pieces, and a number of interesting urban works by Arone Meeks, Ian Waldron, and Richard Bell, among others. Richard Bell is, deservedly, the artist de jour. His ground-breaking installation Embassy will be exhibited this year at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall to mark the 50th anniversary of the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

I do hope you enjoy this catalogue and can make it in to see the works in the flesh.

Let’s hope that lockdowns and outbreaks are by then behind us, so that we can welcome as many of you as possible to the preview and viewing, which will be held for a full week prior to the auction at 7pm on March the 8th at our beautiful Redfern gallery.

Best wishes to you all,

There are several fabulous Kimberley paintings by Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, Jack Britten and Freddie Timms, as well as two charming works by centenarian, Patsy Anguburra Lulpunda (Lots 1 and 25). Rover’s early board, Three Owls at Pompei Pillar, 1981, is especially noteworthy and carries a presale estimate of $60,000-80,000.

ADRIAN NEWSTEAD OAM Founding Director - Senior Specialist 6

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INDEX

ARTIST

LOT #

PAGE #

ARTIST

LOT #

PAGE #

Abie Loy Kemarre Albert Namatjira Angelina Pwerle (Ngal) Arone Meeks Artist Once Known Baluka Maymuru Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri Billy Benn Perrurle Boliny Wanambi Charlie Taruwa Tjungurrayi CharlieTjapangati Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Cory Surprise Wakartu Crusoe Guningbal Dorothy Napangardi Eileen Stevens Taritja Emily Kame Kngwarreye Eunice Jack Napanangka Freddie Timms Gali Yalkarriwuy Gurruwiwi Garawan Wanambi George Ward Tjungarrayi Ginger Riley Munduwalawala Gloria Petyarre Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty Ian Waldron Ivan Namirrkki Jack Britten Jack Wherra John Mawurndjul John Namerredje Guymala Jonathan Brown Kumuntjara Judy Watson Napangardi Kathleen Ngal Kathleen Petyarre Kathleen Ngal Kudditji Kngwarreye Lily Karadada

26 33, 34 27 92 16,17, 64, 65 66 2, 31 4 20 35 88 18, 19, 37, 87 11 40 78 84 29, 30, 50, 54, 79 97 32 41, 42 68 91 49 57 98 58 69 24, 72 101 5 43 100 93 28 60 85 6, 56 23

34 43, 44, 45 35 97 24, 25, 75 76 10, 40, 41 12 28 46 95 26, 27, 48, 94 19 50 86 92 37, 38, 39, 60, 64,87 101 42 51 77 96 58, 59 67 102 68 77 32, 80 105 13 52 104 98 36 70, 71 92 14, 66 31

Long Jack Phillipus Lorna Ward Napanangka Lucy Yukenbarri Maggie Watson Napangardi Malaluba Gumana Margaret Baragurra Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri Millie Skeen Minnie Pwerle Naata Nungurrayi Nadjalgala Wurramara Narrabri Nakamarra Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa (Mrs Bennett) Old Mick Walankari Paddy Jaminji Jampin Paddy Bedford Paddy Japanangka Lewis Paddy Sims Tjapaltjarri Patsy Anguburra Lulpunda Peg Leg Tjampitjinpa Queenie McKenzie Nakara Regina Wilson Richard Bell Rosie Nanyuma Rover Thomas Joolama Ronnie Tjampitjinpa Sally Gabori (Juwarnda Mirdidingkingathi) Sam Manggudja Garnarradj Murtiyarru Sunfly Tjampitjin Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri Thomas Tjapaltjarri Timothy Cook Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula Walangkura Reid Napurrula Walangkura Napanangka (Uta Uta Tjangala’s Widow) Willy Tjungurrayi Tommy Watson Yannima Yaritji Young

36 77 95 21 67 103 62 10 7, 53, 59, 94 48, 80 39 99 47, 76 14 70 71 75 83 1, 25 46 15, 73 63 12, 13 96 22, 38, 74 45 3, 51 44 9 8 89, 90 102 61 81 82 45 55, 86 52

47 85 100 29 76 106 73 18 15, 63, 69, 99 57, 88 50 103 56, 84 22 78 79 83 91 9, 33 55 23, 81 74 20, 21 100 30, 49, 82 54 11, 61 53 17 16 95, 96 105 72 89 90 54 65, 93 62

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Sally (Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda) Gabori Barramundi Story (detail) 2007 synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen 121 x 91 cm

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01 PATSY ANGUBURRA LULPUNDA (1898 - 2000) 62.5 x 60.5 cm natural earth pigments on canvas

During the last decade of her life, Patsy Lulpunda lived on the Prince Regent River near Mowandjum, creating hair belts, stone axes, and other items of material culture. Her first paintings were created when she was 100 years of age, whilst visiting the great Kimberley custodian and story teller Jack Dale during a workshop organised in 1998. She participated in several painting workshops at his home before her death at 102 at the start of the new millennium.

PROVENANCE Niagara Galleries, Vic Cat No. 22917 Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Private Collection, Vic

Lulpunda’s Wororra name ‘Anguburra’ refers to the native honeybee that produces the most exquisitely tasting honey. It was a delightful and most fitting name for a woman whose sprightly and spirited engagement with life extended her autumn years beyond all expectation.

EST $8,000 - 10,000

Anguburra witnessed and experienced great cultural transformations during her long life, given her presence when Wororra culture was yet to experience the influence and impact of colonisation.

FOUR WANDJINA BIRDS, 2000

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02 BILL WHISKEY TJAPALTJARRI (c.1920 - 2008) UNTITLED (ROCKHOLES NEAR THE OLGAS), 2008 50 x 25 cm each, 52.5 x 25.5 cm each (framed) synthetic polymer paint on board PROVENANCE Watiyawarnu Art Centre, NT Cat No. 77-08005 and 77-080015 Private Collection, NT Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Watiyawarnu Art Centre EST $4,000 - 6,000

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Bill Whiskey did not begin painting on canvas until entering the last four years of his life at 84 years of age, by which time he was widely renowned as a powerful healer and keeper of sacred knowledge. His paintings, the first to depict the major Dreaming story and the creation of major sites throughout his country, are imbued with authority and steeped in traditional knowledge.

His subjects included the mythic battle related in the Cockatoo Dreaming that occurred at his birthplace, Pirupa Alka (Rock holes near the Olgas Kata Tjuta and Ayers Rock - Uluru). During the battle, white feathers were scattered about and the landscape became indented by the entangled combatants crashing to the ground repeatedly. Subterranean streams filled these impressions with water and a circular amphitheatre was created by the sweep of wings. Today, a large, central, glowing white rock signifies the fallen cockatoo, still sipping the life-giving water from the sacred pools. In keeping with the depiction of Dreaming stories throughout the Western Desert, the mythic and numinous is inherent within the sacred geography.

In this painting, water places such as Pirupa Akla are marked by sets of concentric circles, their dazzling presence representing their powerful lifegiving significance rather than their actual size. The actions of the White Cockatoo and Crow ancestors are encrypted as dotted patches that reference topographic features associated with the Dreaming.

03 MIRDIDINGKINGATHI JUWARNDA (SALLY GABORI) (1924 - 2015) BARRAMUNDI STORY, 2007

91 x 121 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Mornington Island Arts and Crafts, Qld Cat No. 2336-L-SG-0607 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Mornington Island Arts and Crafts EST $8,000 - 10,000

Sally Gabori first picked up a paintbrush in 2005 at 81 years of age. The Lardil people in the Kaiadilt community had little exposure to fine art, or any comparable form of mark-making, prior to that time. Traditional tools, objects, or bodies were scarcely painted, and the only recorded art that relates these stories was a group of drawings made at the request of ethnologist Norman B Tindale during his expedition to Bentinck Island in 1960, now housed in the South Australian Museum.

Her paintings are essentially concerned with meaningful sites, known through the artist’s intimate association during a lifetime spent on Bentinck Island.

These sites are associated with tidal movement, seasonal change, major climatic events such as drought, and flood, and the presence of plants, sea birds, animals, and aquatic life. Gabori was mindful of the ebb and flow of life over all the seasons that made up her long life. As Djon Mundine eloquently put it. ‘Her works can be thought of as a memory walk, and a mapping of her physical and social memory of Bentinck Island’.* * Djon Mundine, The Road to Bentinck Island: Sally Gabori, in The Corrigan Collection of Paintings by Sally Gabori, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2015

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04 BILLY BENN PERRURLE (1943 - 2012) ARTETYERRE, 2008

46 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists, NT Cat No. BB080418 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists EST $3,000 - 4,000

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Billy Benn was born in the Harts Range, 200 km north-east of Alice Springs.

As a young man, he worked in the local mine and learned to paint in watercolour from the Chinese wife of one of the miners. He did not begin painting in earnest, however, until 2000.

The influence of Chinese painting traditions on Benn’s art can be seen in the scale and perspective of his works, their layered colour, and their selfassured brushstrokes.Though painted with acrylics, the colours are arranged like a classic watercolour palette.These are applied as washes before thicker impasto paint is added.

In this work golden yellows, bright greens, pastel blues and ash white, are used to create the land-form and features. Benn whips up skies and lays down slopes and escarpments with fluid single movements, as in the laying down of traditional Chinese brushstrokes.

Billy Benn’s art has often been critically located outside of the art world category of fine art. Journalist Nicholas Rothwell was one of many writers to refer to him as an outsider artist, a status conferred due to his stylistically naive approach, his mental condition, and the fact that he was characterised as ‘lost between worlds’.

05 JOHN MAWURNDJUL (1951 - ) RAINBOW SERPENT OF THE DREAMTIME, 2003 89 x 74 cm natural earth pigments on bark

PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts & Crafts, NT Cat No. MA03/GG011 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity verso EST $6,000 - 12,000

Born at Mumeka, located near the Mann River in Central Arnhem Land, an important site for the Kurulk clan, John Mawurndjurl was taught to paint by his elder brother Jimmy Njiminjuma and his uncle Peter Marralwanga.

He began his art practice painting mythological figures such as the Ngalyod the Rainbow serpent and totemic creatures and has, over recent years, developed a more abstract style with interlocking gridded rarrk, or crosshatching, over the entire surface.

In this work we see Ngaljod, or Borlong, the giant Rainbow Serpent of the Dreamtime, who was the son of Jingana, the mother creator of the earth in Western Arnhem Land. According to legend, Jingana grew two large eggs in her stomach and eventually gave birth to a son, Ngaljod, and a daughter, Ngalgun-Burimaimi. Ngaljod had the body of a snake, like his mother, but it had scales and a tail similar to a crocodile. On his head was a feathered headdress (Djaradjalina) similar to those that Aboriginals wear in ceremonies honouring him.

Ngaljod is the creator of storms. He forms clouds by shooting vapour into the air, then pierces them with his forked tongue to bring down torrential rain. His forked tongue flickering across the sky also creates lightning, and his growling is the thunder.

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06 KUDDITJI KNGWARREYE (1938 - 2017) UNTITLED, 2011

120.5 x 180 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. AGOD/11296 Private Collection, Vic Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings with booklet including photographs of the artist working EST $5,000 - 8,000

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The younger brother of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Kudditji had a traditional bush upbringing in the Utopia region and became a traditional custodian of many important Dreamings, and ceremonial sites.

He began painting symmetrical dotted paintings in the early 1980s but took to experimentation developing this highly intuitive and gestural style after seeing Emily catapult on to the Australian and International Art scene in the 1990s.

Thereafter his artworks became known for his bold colour use and intuitive interplay with space and form.

With a heavy loaded brush he painted his country with broad strokes and a combination of bold colours and soft fusions, accentuating the natural colours of land and sky over various seasons. This painting depicts an interpretation of the Emu Dreaming site and ceremonies associated with Men’s Business.

Kudditji’s paintings are romantic images of his country, accentuating the colour and form of the landscape including the depth of the sky in the rainy season and in the summer heat.

07 MINNIE PWERLE (1910 - 2006) AWELYE ATNWENGERRP, 1999 91.5 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas

PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. AGOD/12327 Private Collection, Vic Signed verso Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings with booklet

The manner in which Minnie Pwerle created her works was the result of an urgency to reconnect to the past and to keep the Dreaming a living reality.

Painting after painting depicted the body designs applied to women’s breasts and limbs for the regular ceremonial revivification of her country.

These bold linear patterns of stripes and curves evoke the movement of the women as they dance during ceremony. After smearing their bodies with animal fat, they trace these designs onto their breasts, arms and thighs singing as each woman has a turn to be ‘painted up’. Then, often by firelight, they dance in formation accompanied by ritual singing. The songs relate to the Dreamtime stories of ancestral travel as well as plants, animals and natural forces.

Awelye-Women’s ceremony demonstrates respect for the land. In performing these ceremonies they ensure well-being and happiness within their community.

EST $8,000 - 12,000

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08 SUSIE BOOTJA BOOTJA NAPALTJARRI (c.1932 - 2003) MY COUNTRY - KANINGARRA WATERHOLE LIVING WATER, 2002

Susie Bootja Bootja was a larger than life character whose artistic practice epitomised the Balgo women’s panache for colour and experimentation.

Like all Kukatja people, she inherited ownership rights over specific sites and ancestral designs from both her father’s and her mother’s side.

PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 520/02 Private Collection, Tas

The depiction of waterholes by both men and women painters at Balgo is a vital element in the transfer of knowledge between the generations.

The location of permanent waterholes (living water) is considered vital knowledge in this often harsh and forbidding landscape. The preciousness of water in the arid desert landscape and its spiritual essence, was a primary theme in the works of both Susie Bootja Bootja’s and her husband Mick Gill Tjakamarra, an important rainmaker.

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Warlayirti Artists

In this experimental work in glass, Susie has depicted the Kaningarra waterhole where she spent her youth.

45 x 45 cm synthetic polymer paint on glass

EST $3,000 - 4,000

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09 MURTIYARRU SUNFLY TJAMPITJIN (1916 - 1996) LUURNPA - TRAVELS OF THE KINGFISHER ANCESTRAL SPIRITS, 1992 47.5 x 23.5 cm (irregular) synthetic polymer paint on carved wood

PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists Aboriginal Corporation, WA Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands Bonhams, The Thomas Vroom Collection, Lot 64, Sydney, September 2015 Private Collection, Tas EST $6,000 - 8,000

Sunfly Tjampitjin was already around 70 years old when the Walayirti art centre opened in Balgo Hills in the mid 1980s and only lived for another ten years.

It is estimated that in Sunfly’s entire career he produced little more than a total of 50 paintings. Yet so powerful are his works that his renown was unparalleled amongst the burgeoning art community at Balgo Hills during his lifetime.

Stripped of subsidiary detail and startling in their economy, the starkness and simplicity of Sunfly’s compositions is reminiscent of sacred ground paintings.

The bold use of flat blocks of red, yellow, white and black have spiritual significance for, as ochres, they embody the transformed substances of the ancestral beings.

Sunfly Tjampitjin’s works were included in the most important landmark exhibitions during the final years of his life. Amongst these were Mythscapes, Aboriginal Art of the Desert, at the National Gallery of Victoria: Aboriginal Art: The Continuing Tradition at the National Gallery of Australia in 1989; Aboriginal Paintings from the Desert, shown at the Union of Soviet Artists Gallery, Moscow and Museum of Ethnographic Art in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1991; Crossroads-Towards a New Reality, at the, National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto and Tokyo in 1992: and Aratjara, Art of the First Australians, at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf and other touring venues throughout Europe in 1994.

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10 MILLIE SKEEN (1932 - 1997) NAKARRA NAKARRA, 1993

129 x 80 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 461/93 Private Collection, USA Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Warlayirti Artists EST $10,000 - 15,000

Millie Skeen was born near Kiwirrkura and moved with her parents to Tjalwan, where the old Balgo Mission was established in 1942. She was one of the first women to paint at Balgo in 1986, and her development as an artist underwent a number of stylistic evolutions over the following years.

While Millie’s early works employ the characteristically dark autumnal palette of Balgo paintings created between 1985 and 1989, she was one of the leaders of the movement amongst the female artists to adopt brighter colours thereafter. Her works were accomplished and distinguishable by the time Balgo held its first exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1989 and she was regularly featured in Balgo’s first commercial exhibitions.

The contrast between fields of dots and flat blocks of colour add a delicate tension to Millie’s paintings. Their elaborate composition reflects the patterns found in body and ground painting and defies a simple geographic reading.

While all of the senior women artists at Balgo Hills during the early 1990s painted identifiably distinguishable work, Millie’s art exemplifies the verve and pride with which these women took to painting, thereby creating a distinctive art movement. Her works stand out for both the beauty of their realisation, and the intimacy of their execution, as exemplars for future generations of Balgo women to emulate.

In this work, most likely assisted by her husband Tommy Skeen, the artist has depicted her husband’s country. Here the Nakarra Nakarra ceremony brings all of the women together to dance.

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11 CORY SURPRISE WAKARTU (1929 - 2011) JILJI COUNTRY, 2005

151 x 101 cm, 164 x 113 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on paper PROVENANCE Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency, WA Private Collection, NSW EST $4,000 - 6,000

Cory Surprise was a highly regarded, award-winning contemporary artist from Fitzroy Crossing known for her uninhibited painting style. She was born at Tapu, her father’s country, in the Great Sandy Desert. Her parents both died there when she was still a baby. Cory managed to escape the outside world by staying with her extended family until she walked out of the bush as a young woman having already been inducted into the law. As a result, she knew her country intimately, including all the places to find water, all the significant sites, and how to find food.

In time she met and married the well known artist Peter Skipper, who worked as a contractor building fences. They travelled together and she worked as a camp cook and goat herd. They worked at Quanbun Downs, Jubilee Station, Yiyili, and Cherrabun Station, before settling at GoGo Station (near Fitzroy Crossing) for more than 20 years. Finally, they moved into the larger township at Fitzroy Crossing in the 1950s.

Cory first started painting at Karrayili Adult Education Centre in the early 1980s when in her 50s. Her paintings are all about her country, including jilji [sand hills], jumu [soak water], jila [permanent waterholes], and jiwari [rock holes], pamarr [hills and rock country], mangarri [vegetable food] and kuyu [meat].

This work depicts Jilji (sandhills) at her birthplace deep in the Great Sandy Desert.

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12 RICHARD BELL (1953 - ) ANOTHER MESSAGE, 2014 150 x 60 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas PROVENANCE Bett Gallery, Tas Private Collection, NSW Signed verso Richard Bell EXHIBITED ProppaNOW, The Black Line, Bett Gallery, Hobart, Tas, 2014 EST $8,000 - 12,000

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Born in 1953, Richard Bell spent his early childhood living in a tent, then a corrugated tin shack on an Aboriginal reserve until he was 14. He witnessed first hand the mistreatment of Aboriginal people when his home was bulldozed by the government. He became involved in the Aboriginal Rights Movement in the 1970s before working for the New South Wales Aboriginal Legal Service, and began painting at 34 as a way to earn money by making souvenirs for tourists.

Bell came to national attention after his painting Scientia E Metaphysica (Bell’s Theorem) won the 2003 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. It prominently featured the text “Aboriginal Art – It’s A White Thing”.

Bell plays with the appropriation of abstract expressionism and works by pop art painters such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol.

The text that accompanies each piece is intended to challenge the viewer by exposing Australia’s racism towards Aboriginal people, endemic white privilege, negative stereotyping, and exoticising of the “other”.

13 RICHARD BELL (1953 - ) KICK SOMEBODY ELSE, 2008

150 x 120 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Bett Gallery, Tas Private Collection, NSW Signed verso Richard Bell EST $12,000 - 18,000

Richard Bell’s international profile has grown exponentially since 2009 when his introductory North American exhibition, I Am Not Sorry, showcased in New York City and his exhibition Uz Vs Them, toured the USA. His Embassy Project was included in the Moscow Biennale, Performa 15 in New York, the Jakarta Biennale, the Sonsbeek International in Arnhem, Netherlands and other significant international venues over the following years.

After unsuccessfully applying to represent Australia at the 2019 Venice Bienalle, he gate-crashed the event when his replica of the Australian Pavilion held down with giant chains and shrouded in black. sailed the Venetian lagoon alongside the Giardini.

Bell’s solo exhibition, You Can Go Now, at the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art in 2021, was the precursor to his becoming the first Australian to be invited to exhibit at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall. In 2022, to mark the 50th anniversary of the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy, his groundbreaking work, Embassy 2015, will be shown at this prestigious international venue.

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14 OLD MICK WALANKARI TJAKAMARRA (c.1910 - 1996) WATER AND RAINBOW, 1973 44 x 23 cm, 65.2 x 44.2 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on board

Born at Watikipinrri, west of central Mount Wedge, Mick Walankari is thought to have been one of the last surviving Kukatja of the Central Desert region. Having worked on cattle stations at Glen Helen and Narwietooma stations before being re-settled at Papunya and being able to speak English well, he often acted as a negotiator in the community and became an important figure in the genesis of the Papunya Tula art movement because of his seniority and great knowledge of traditional designs and stories.

PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. OM735815 Private Collection, NT Lawson~Menzies, Lot 171, Sydney, February 2014 Private Collection, NSW

When the idea for the school murals were first conceived by Geoff Bardon, it was Old Mick, already a pensioner and Kaapa who, followed by a small group of whispering men, handed Bardon the scrap of paper, ‘…smaller and narrower than a matchbox, almost unreadable in its smallness,’ that showed the Honey Ant design. It was from this humble beginning that the Western Desert art movement began.

Inscribed verso Water and Rainbow/ Old Mick Tjakamarra/ Loritja Tribe/ Custodian Artist/ OM 735 815

Old Mick’s early paintings are compelling in their palpable sense of élan and played a vital role in inspiring other painters. His works elicit the passing between the earthly and spirit world in a solemn but warm and beautifully balanced symbolic rendition.

EST $12,000 - 15,000

In this work the artist has created a stylised map of his country during rain.The wavy lines interconnect waterholes and suggest landscape, terrain and flowing water.They are surrounded by parallel curved lines representing rainbows while the delicate dotting delineates the topography.

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15 QUEENIE MCKENZIE NAKARRA (1930 - 1998) TEXAS STATION COUNTRY, 1995 60 x 75 cm, 61.5 x 77 cm (framed) natural earth pigment on canvas PROVENANCE Pensioner’s Unit, WA Neil McLeod Fine Arts Studio, Vic Signed verso Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Neil McLeod Fine Arts Studio EST $12,000 - 16,000

Queenie McKenzie was born on Old Texas Station on the Ord River in the north west of Western Australia. As a young girl she began her life of cooking for the stockmen, tending and riding horses, and journeying as they drove cattle across the vast pastoral region of the north.

During the 1970s, Queenie, then in her fifties, played a leading role in community affairs and experimented with representational art as an educational tool in the local school. She taught Gija language and cultural traditions as part of the ‘two-way’ education given at the school. Besides helping to maintain ancient knowledge of sacred sites and the Dreaming mythology, it seamlessly paralleled bible stories and provided the young with both a spiritual awareness and an involvement in community activities. She participated in both traditional ceremonies and the Pentecostal gatherings that were held near Frog Hollow about a half hour from Warmun.

Queenie McKenzie earned world wide acclaim with distinct and influential artworks depicting the country of her childhood and early working life around Texas Station, as well as other sites throughout the East Kimberley region. She was in her lifetime, and still to this day, recognised as a spiritual and cultural icon, whose commitment to art has left an indelible impact on Australian history and culture.

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16 ARTIST ONCE KNOWN PURUKAPALI AND BIMA, C.1980 68 x 19 x 15 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood PROVENANCE Tiwi Pima Art, NT Private Collection, NSW EST $4,000 - 6,000

The Tiwi people live on Bathurst and Melville Islands, north of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. Tiwi culture is quite different to that of the mainland. Here, the main ceremonies are associated with fertility, increase and abundance (Kurlama – Yam ceremonies), and funeral rites (Pukumani ceremonies), during which the soul of the deceased makes its spirit journey back to live amongst the ancestors.

This janus-like figure represents both Purukapali and his wife Bima, the two primary creation ancestors of Tiwi people. In the Tiwi foundation creation story Purukapali and Tarpara were brothers. Tapara made love to Purukapali’s wife, Bima, who left her son Jinani out under the hot sun. When Jinani passed away, death came to the Tiwi Islands for the first time. The two brothers fought and Tapara fled into the sky, where he became the moon.

In the old days, the Tiwi carved these totem-like figures out of bloodwood trees by slowly burning sections, which were then scraped away using shell knives. As this wood is extremely hard, it was not until metal axes were introduced that Tiwi carving became more refined.The figures are completed with elaborate painting, representing aspects of the creation story.

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17 ARTIST ONCE KNOWN TIWI SPEARS, c.1960

163 x 10 cm & 155 x 11 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood PROVENANCE Field Collected, Tiwi Islands c.1960 Leonard Joel, Fine Art, Lot 40 and 41, Melbourne, June 2007 The McAllister Collection, NSW EST $3,000 - 5,000 Tiwi spears are entirely different to those made by mainland tribes, as they were not launched with the help of woomeras (spearthrowers), but by hand. For daily hunting expeditions, simple hardwood spears up to 350 cm long were traditionally used.

Ceremonial spears, however, were either single or double barbed with up to 30 individual barbs directed backward from the point. These two fine examples both feature Arawinikirri (female) spear tips. Originally, these were painstakingly carved with sharp shells, taking months to complete. The shell tools were eventually replaced with more efficient metal implements. Master carvers were thus able to attain a particularly high degree of refinement. These examples are beautifully painted with natural ochres as in the past. Spears such as this were brandished by key performers during ceremony along with elongated paddle-shaped and painted clubs .* *Information provided by Jennifer Isaacs

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18 CLIFFORD POSSUM TJAPALTJARRI (1932 - 2002) DANCING CORROBOREE MEN, 1996 77 x 92 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Artspeak Studio Gallery, Vic Cat No. HS551CPT Private Collection, NSW EST $7,000 - 9,000

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This work depicts two men belonging to the Tjungurrayi and Tjapaltjarri kinship groups - a father and son relationship - performing a ritual dance.The figures are drawn naturalistically, wearing ceremonial regalia and body paint.

The two dancing figures are Possum Men with their tracks detailed at the bottom being Possum feet and the wavy lines the trail left by their tails.

The symbolism is repeated on the ceremonial shield and boomerang held by one of the men and the S shape on their caps. The other figure holds a large fighting stick.

Given the auto-biographical nature of much of Tjapaltjarri’s painting, the two figures possibly represent him with his father Jajirdi Tjungurrayi or his adoptive father, Jajirdi’s younger brother Gwoya Tjungurrayi (c.1895 - 1965).

Gwoya is known popularly by the nickname One Pound Jimmy because he was the first Aboriginal person to be featured on an Australian stamp in 1950.

19 CLIFFORD POSSUM TJAPALTJARRI (1932 - 2002)

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a. DECORATED SHIELD, 1960s 63 x 17 x 6 cm synthetic polymer paint on Beanwood

b. DECORATED WOOMERRA, 1970s 72 x 10 x 4 cm synthetic polymer paint on Red River Gum PROVENANCE Private Collection, SA Woomera signed verso Clifford Possum Accompanied with a photo of the artist holding the two artworks EST $4,000 - 6,000 These two traditional weapons were painted by Clifford Possum as part of a special private commission during the 1990s and are unique examples of his artwork.

The Bean wood shield was originally made in the 1960s and features parallel striated fluting. It has been painted on the convex outer surface with an image depicting the footprints of men hunting with spears, a whisk and a type of bush bean that grows at the site near Napperby Station in the Tanami Desert..

The Mulga wood woomera was carved in the 1970s and features Clifford’s image of two men (U shapes) sitting at Brook’s Well while a serpent writhes above the site indicating its sacred nature. The artist has signed his name across the flat inner surface of the weapon, that is decorated with an incised men’s ceremonial design.

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20 BOLINY WANAMBI (1957 - 2011) UNTITLED, 2011

126 x 63 cm natural earth pigments on bark PROVENANCE Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, NT Cat No. 3711F & 0307YAR Alcaston Gallery, Vic Cat No. AKG1241 Private Collection, Vic EST $2,500 - 3,500

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Boliny spent her childhood on the Marrakulu homeland in Barraratjpi, located within Cape Shield on Blue Mud Bay. The new homeland of Gurka’wuy was established in the early 1970s by her father. She is the widow of Birrikitji, who was the clan leader of Dhalwangu up until the early eighties. Boliny was a prolific artist, who worked with a variety of media including natural ochres on bark, lino-cut images, and wood carvings.

For many years she worked as an assistant to various other artists and aided Banduk Marika and her brother Wukun in creating a number of award winning works, though she generally stayed out of the limelight herself.

By 2009, the year her highly successful solo exhibition was held in Sydney, her work was to be included in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

21 MAGGIE WATSON NAPANGARDI (1921 - 2004) WOMEN’S HAIR STRING CEREMONY, 1992 127 x 63 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen

PROVENANCE Warlurkulangu Artists, NT Cat No. 029/92 Private Collection, Vic Private Collection, USA EST $8,000 - 12,000

Maggie Watson began painting at 60 years of age. She was a leader amongst a group of women artists who challenged the dominance of men’s acrylic painting in the Central Desert region. The emergence of these women in Yuendumu, and simultaneously in Utopia, challenged the notion that men were the sole guardians of the visual life of communities.

Amongst the major themes depicted by Maggie Watson was the important Warlpiri women’s Dreaming of the Karntakurlangu. This epic tale recounts the travel of a large group of ancestral women, the hair string belts and Ngalyipi (Tinospora smilacina or snake vine) were used to carry their babies and possessions, and the magical emergence of digging sticks, which literally thrust themselves out of the ground before the women during the Dreaming, equipped them for their travels. As the women danced their way across the desert in joyous exultation, they clutched the digging sticks.

Dancing in a long line, they created important sites and encountered other Dreamings.

Maggie Watson’s paintings are characterised by their linear precision, created by applying dots in alternating bands of colour. When viewed in varying arrays across the canvas, these meticulously applied striations impart a rhythmic trancelike quality, thereby evoking the movement of lines of women as they dance and chant during ceremony.

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22 ROVER THOMAS JOOLAMA (1926 - 1998) MY HAND, 1993

90 x 60 cm, 95 x 64.5 cm (framed) natural earth pigments on canvas PROVENANCE Chapman Gallery, ACT Private Collection, USA Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Chapman Gallery EST $20,000 - 30,000

Rover Thomas lived a traditional bush life with his family at Well 33 until he moved, at 10 years of age, to Billiluna Station, where he was initiated after his mother’s death. After working as a jackeroo on the Canning Stock Route, he became a fencing contractor in Wyndham and later worked as a stockman in the Northern Territory and the fringes of the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts. In his later years, he began painting in the Warmun community at Turkey Creek..

While Rover’s artworks can generally be characterised as map-like depictions of country, executed with natural earth pigments in a graphic Kimberley style, they generally carry historic and social connotations. In this emblematic work, the black line symbolises a bitumen road, however the section in chocolate brown ochre is surrounded by a line of white dots, and represents the unbroken ancestral connection and continuity of Kimberley culture.

Images of meeting roads became a theme throughout Rover’s painting career, and can be interpreted as the artist’s belief that both black and white can live, reconciled and in harmony.

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23 LILY KARADADA (c.1937 - ) WANDJINA, 2000

100 x 60 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Narrangunny Art Traders, WA Cat No. N-1289-LK Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Narrangunny Art Traders EXHIBITED Lily Karadada - The last of the great Wandjina painters, Cooee Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, April 2011 EST $2,500 - 3,500

When Kimberley art first found its way to the market during the 1970s, Lily and her husband Jack Karadada participated in the first exhibition in Perth. It was thought that bringing this unique tradition to public attention would ensure its survival.

The assimilation of sacred elements into the secular did not detract from its numinous character, or its ability to mesmerise an audience. Lily’s refined style, full of subtle variations in tone, depict figures which often emerge from a veil of rain-like dots. They are accompanied by animal spirits, beautifully captured in uncluttered character.

Lily’s totems are the turkey, possum, and white cockatoo. She belongs to the Jirrengar owlet moiety and the Wandjina hold a special affinity with the owl. A sympathetic Wandjina spirit rescued the legendary owl, Dumbi, from a group of playful children who were pulling out its feathers.Though the Wandjina returned to the clouds, a close association remained between the two. It is said that the Wandjina spirit figure is the embodiment of the rain spirit and ancestor of the Wonnambal, Ngarinyin, and Worrora peoples of the North West Kimberley.

Wandjina figures are seen decorating the walls of caves in the plateau areas along the North Kimberley coast and are unique to this region.They are always pictured using red ochre, from a frontal aspect, with no mouths, large black eyes, and a slit or beak like nose. They are usually depicted in a veil of dots which represent the blood and water mix of man and animal. Dreamtime mythology has it that the Wandjina emerged from the clouds and will return in that form.

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24 JACK BRITTEN (c.1921 - 2001) GNAIRARINY - CARR-BOYD RANGES, 1999 90 x 120 cm natural earth pigment on linen

PROVENANCE Narrangunny Art Traders, WA Cat No. N-0640-JB Private Collection, NT EST $6,000 - 8,000

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Jack Britten was at Tickelara Station in the north-west of Australia, at a time when many Gija people were massacred during the gold rush at Hall’s Creek and Chinaman’s Garden in the East Kimberley region.

Jack Britten began painting earlier than almost all of his contemporaries, including Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. His grandparents taught him to paint using traditional materials, methods, and themes. Despite a vast repertoire, Jack Britten is most renowned for his depictions of the Purnululu, the Bungle Bungle region of which he became the most senior living custodian.

Throughout his career he constantly drew inspiration from this land, painting the Bungle Bungles as clusters of dome shaped mountains, layered with glistening white or black trails of dots. Eccentricities and undulations in composition and stylistic manner were to be found throughout his artistic output.

25 PATSY ANGUBURRA LULPUNDA (1898 - 2000) SEVEN WANDJINA BIRDS, 1999 57 x 147 cm, 63.5 x 154 cm (framed) natural earth pigment on canvas PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Private Collection, Vic EST $12,000 - 14,000

During the last decade of her life, Patsy Lulpunda lived on the Prince Regent River near Mowandjum, creating hair belts, stone axes, and other items of material culture. Her first paintings were created when she was 100 years of age, whilst visiting the great Kimberley custodian and storyteller Jack Dale during a workshop organised in 1998. She participated in several painting workshops at his home before her death at 102.

Lulpunda’s Wororra name ‘Anguburra’ refers to the native honey bee that produces the most exquisite tasting honey. It was a delightful and most fitting name for a woman whose sprightly engagement with life extended her autumn years beyond all expectation.

Anguburra witnessed and experienced great cultural transformations during her long life, given her presence when Wororra culture was yet to experience the influence and impact of colonisation.

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26 ABIE LOY KEMARRE (1972 - ) BUSH LEAF DREAMING, 2009

107 x 107 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Gallerie Australis, SA Cat No. GAAL09041319 Private Collection, NSW EST $3,500 - 5,500

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Abie Loy Kemarre belongs to the Eastern Anmatyerre language group and identifies with her traditional country at Lylenty, or Mosquito Bore, on the Utopia clan lands. She developed her painting technique alongside her famous grandmother Kathleen Petyarre.

Under Eastern Anmatyerr Law, Abie has the right to portray several Dreamings. These include the Bush Hen and Bush Leaf Dreaming. The bush leaf is used by Aboriginal people to cure a range of illnesses including colds, headaches, and sores. It grows in a swamp near some sandhills close to the Utopia region in Abie’s grandfather’s country. Apart from its wonderful curative properties, it is closely associated with women, and is a shapeshifter, and a state-changer. Its female custodians are said to possess the ability to transform themselves from their human form into the bush leaf and back again during ceremony.

27 ANGELINA PWERLE (NGAL) (1946 - ) BUSH PLUM DREAMING, c.2005 91 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas

PROVENANCE Waterhole Arts, NSW Cat No. W200 Private Collection, NSW EST $6,000 - 7,000

Angelina began by producing batiks and wooden sculptures alongside her elder sisters Kathleen and Poly Ngal for the Utopia Summer Project in the late 1970s. In 1980, at 40 years of age, she was included in the first exhibition of Utopia women’s paintings held in Alice Springs.

Angelina’s paintings can be seen as a translation of the cultural, geographic, social and religious components of Anmatjerre life. Her intimate renditions of country are delicately layered and can be read and appreciated at a superficial level for their abstraction and painterliness. At a deeper level, they depict the cultural and social mores of the society in which she lives.

Angelina paints her grandfather’s country, Alparra. Many of her paintings depict the Bush Plum, which she represents through a focus of many coloured dots flooding the canvas. She also paints the multicoloured wild flowers of her country, producing patchworks of colour in an ethereal landscape.

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28 KATHLEEN NGAL (1930 - ) UNTITLED, 2008

177 x 304 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, NT Cat No. 08B23 Metro Gallery, Vic Private Collection, NSW EST $28,000 - 35,000

Kathleen Ngal was born at Camel Camp, an outstation near the Sandover River on the Utopia clan lands in the Eastern Desert, 240 kilometres northeast of Alice Springs. She began her artistic career creating Batik designs on silk during workshops organised by Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) in the late 1970s.

Her paintings can be interpreted as sophisticated mind maps, depicting cultural knowledge of her country as well as its physical geography.

Thousands of dots of colour rained across her brilliant canvases, denoting the varied flora and geographical locations of the Bush Plum.

The site depicted is Arlperre on Utopia Station. This is country that belongs to the Ngal and Kemarr custodians, who paint the Bush Plum or Conkleberry, which only thrives once every seven years, following large storms.

Kathleen’s paintings can be predominantly white, representing the petals of its flowers, or a range of orange, red, blue, purple, and yellow, depending on the different degrees of ripeness of the plum. In this work, we see the plant’s final flourish, as white dots overlay the canvas, representing the sun-dried leaves, seeds, husks, and grasses of Arlperre.

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29 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910 - 1996) ANOORALYA, 1995

130 x 80 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Utopia Art, NSW Cat No. EKK547 Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 24/11/2009, Lot No. 141 Private Collection, Vic

In this work, Emily strikes out with linear tracings that demonstrate the various colours she associates with the mature phase of the Yam’s life cycle, when the ripe fruit and seeds start the process of drying. Intermingling with the fruit and seeds are the falling leaves and flowers of summer that draw the emus to feed on her country and to raise their young. Here, Emily is at one with her world. She moves with full confidence and resolve after the excitement and satisfaction of an abundant season. We witness the transformation of the desert after the abundant season as the country dries out. The grass seeds fall and scatter, settling into thickly carpeted sweeping swathes on the desert floor.

Accompanied by a photograph of the artist with the artwork EST $50,000 - 60,000

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30 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910 - 1996) WOMEN’S DREAMING - AWELYE, 1990 122 x 91 cm, 124 x 92.5 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE CAAMA, NT Cat No. 13-490 Rodney Gooch, NT Utopia Art, NSW Private Collection, NSW Sotheby’s, Fine Contemporary and Aboriginal Art, Lot 654, Melbourne, November 1995 Private Collection,Vic Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, Lot 62, Melbourne, July 27 2007 Private Collection, Israel Mossgreen Auctions, Fine Early Aboriginal and Oceanic Art, Lot 50, Sydney, 29 August 2010 Private Collection,Vic EXHIBITED First Solo Show, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, 1990 EST $80,000 - 110,000 38

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This early work by Emily Kngwarreye was commissioned by Rodney Gooch and is representative of the sensitive and subtle paintings of the period.

The arrow shapes, masked by the over-dotting, are representative of Nrange, a sacred grass seed, food for the ancestral Emu which, along with the yam dreaming, belonged to Emily and informed much of the iconography of her oeuvre.

As Kngwarreye’s career evolved, her work became increasingly abstracted and the linear and iconic elements of her early paintings disappeared, only to re-emerge in more minimalist forms towards the end of her life.

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31 BILL WHISKEY TJAPALTJARRI (c.1920 - 2008) ROCKHOLES NEAR THE OLGAS, 2006 180 x 265 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Watiyawarnu Art Centre, NT Cat No. 77-06054 Peta Appleyard Gallery, NT Private Collection, WA Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Watiyawarnu Art Centre EST $70,000 - 90,000 Bill Whiskey’s bold bright painting style reflected his indomitable spirit.

He did not begin painting on canvas until entering the last four years of his life at 84 years of age, by which time he was widely renowned as a powerful healer and keeper of sacred knowledge. His paintings, the first to depict the major Dreaming story and the creation of major sites throughout his country, are imbued with authority and steeped in traditional knowledge.

His subjects included the mythic battle related in the Cockatoo Dreaming that occurred at his birthplace, Pirupa Alka (Rock holes near the Olgas - Kata Tjuta and Ayers Rock - Uluru). During the battle, white feathers were scattered about and the landscape became indented by the entangled combatants crashing to the ground repeatedly. Subterranean streams filled these impressions with water and a circular amphitheatre was created by the sweep of wings. Today, a large, central, glowing white rock signifies the fallen cockatoo, still sipping the life-giving water from the sacred pools. Colourful blues, yellows, and reds, always tempered by cockatoo-white, represent the wildflowers that grow in profusion after rain. In keeping with the depiction of Dreaming stories throughout the Western Desert, the mythic and numinous is inherent within the sacred geography.

In this painting, water places such as Pirupa Akla are marked by sets of concentric circles, their dazzling presence representing their powerful life-giving significance rather than their actual size. The actions of the White Cockatoo and Crow ancestors are encrypted as dotted patches that reference topographic features associated with the Dreaming.

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32 FREDDIE TIMMS (1946 - 2017) MOONLIGHT VALLEY, 2006 151 x 201 cm natural earth pigments on canvas PROVENANCE NOTES Artlandish, WA Private Collection, NSW EST $25,000 - 35,000

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Freddie Timms began painting in 1986, inspired by the elder artists already painting at Frog Hollow, a small outstation attached to the community at Warmun, Turkey Creek. Born at Police Hole circa 1946, he followed in his father’s footsteps to the stockman life at Lissadell Station. At the age of twenty, he set out to explore and work on other stations. It was during this time that he met and worked alongside Rover Thomas who was to have a lasting influence on him. In 1985, he left Lissadell once more to settle at the new community established at Warmun, while working as a gardener at the nearby Argyle Mine.

In a career that spanned more than 20 years, Freddy Timms became known for aerial map-like visions of country that are less concerned with ancestral associations than with tracing the responses and refuges of the Gija people as they encountered the ruthlessness and brutality of colonisation. The political nature of his work is characterised by the intimate interpretations of the experiences of his people. Freddie Timms is foremost amongst those Gija artists of the second generation. His was a unique Gija perspective on the history of white interaction with his people. It is hard to think of another artist who expressed more poignantly through their art the sense of longing and the abiding loss that comes from the forced separation from the land, one’s spiritual home.

33 ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902 - 1959) DOGS HUNTING KANGAROO, C.1950 14 x 58 x 3 cm poker-work on carved mulga wood PROVENANCE NOTES Hermannsburg Mission, NT Private Collection, SA Inscribed verso made by Albert. Hermannsburg ILLUSTRATED Rf. Alison French, Seeing The Centre:The Art of Albert Namatjira, 1902 - 1959, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2002, pg. 4 - 9, illustrated 5 and 6

Born and raised at Hermannsburg, Namatjira was introduced to the Western style of painting in the early 1930s by visiting artists Rex Battarbee and John Gardner.

Before he became a household name as a celebrated watercolour artist, he and his Arrernte countrymen at Hermannsburg were encouraged to make a range of souvenirs for Central Australia’s burgeoning tourist trade.

In response to increasing tourist numbers after the extension of the railway to Alice Springs in 1929, Albert explored a variety of different products and materials to paint on by referencing things that he was familiar with, and that were special to him and his family. Mulga, being used traditionally to make boomerangs and other objects, was a natural medium.

Namatjira was a Lutheran and once he was christened, he became an active member of the church, working briefly as a missionary. He made plaques based on those that the missionaries had in their homes which were inscribed with religious phrases. In this way he began to realise he could make a living in art.

EST $1,500 - 2,500

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34 ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902 - 1959) WESTERN MACDONNELL LANDSCAPE, 1945 25 x 35.5 cm, 41.5 x 51.5 cm (framed) watercolour on paper PROVENANCE Private Collection, NSW thence by descent Accompanied by a Christmas card signed by the artist EST $18,000 - 25,000

Albert Namatjira began painting in the early 1930s. By the time of his death almost thirty years later, his romantic depictions of the Western MacDonnell Ranges, Mount Sonder, and the surrounding desert had become synonymous with our collective vision of the Australian outback.

Namatjira’s watercolours typically capture the high colouring of the desert landscape, the gorges and valleys of the country of his birth, and his Dreaming. He was able to capture the subtleties of colour as the desert changes from the soft tones of summer heat to the rich hues of the early morning and late evening light. As in the majority of his depictions of his country, Namatjira painted this work from an elevated point of view, as if looking down ever so slightly on the landscape. Here, the composition is balanced as the eye is drawn to the centre by the artist’s visual emphasis on the edges.

This painting was purchased directly from Albert Namatjira during one of the many trips made by Terry Southwell-Keely, the instigator of the Ampol Redex Trails in the early 1950s.

Southwell-Keely fought in New Guinea, Palestine and El Alamein during WWII, before becoming a BBC war correspondent reporting from behind enemy lines in German occupied France and Greece. Upon his return to Australia he became the Chief of Public Relations for Ampol during the 1950s and 1960s.

Amongst his many achievements, he was the instigator of the Round Australia Redex Trials, the promoter of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation which was relatively unknown at the time, and the founder of the Walkley Awards for journalism.

Southwell-Keely and Namatjira stayed in touch and remained firm friends until the artist’s death in 1959.The painting is accompanied by a Christmas card signed by Albert and sent to his ‘old mate’ during the 1950s.

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35 CHARLIE TARUWA TJUNGURRAYI (1925 - 1999) CAVE DREAMING, 1972 122 x 62 cm, 133 x 74 cm (framed) natural earth pigments on composition board PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, NT Stuart Art Centre, NT Cat No. 1272120 Private Collection, SA Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, Lot 170, Melbourne, June 2002 Private Collection, NSW Private Collection,Vic EXHIBITED Warlpiri and Pintupi Art, The Vintage Festival, Angaston, SA, 1973 [An exhibition organised by Wyndham Hill Smith OBE, and assembled

by Pat Hogan, Stuart Art Centre Alice Springs] EST $60,000 - 80,000

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Charlie Tawara (Tararu) was a founding member of Papunya Tula and became an important spokesman for the Pintupi due to his strong command of English. He was noted as having been an adventurous and energetic man, and despite a number of white people in the settlement characterising him as difficult, Bardon found him to be accessible and loyal.

His versatility with language and European customs enabled him to guide and explain, on both sides of the cultural divide. He was the eldest of the many Tjungurrayi skin ‘brothers’ that included Kingsley, Shorty Lungkata, and Yala Yala as well as Don, George, Willy, Two Bob, and Yumpululu who would follow these artists into painting.

The vitality of his brushwork imparted a ‘vigourous presence’ to his paintings. In early works such as this, he depicted sacred elements and objects which, due to controversy at the time, were later eliminated from Pintupi men’s paintings in favour of more secular and decorative iconography.

36 LONG JACK PHILLIPUS TJAKAMARRA (1932 - 2020) POSSUM DREAMING, 1972 67 x 49 cm, 76 x 58 cm (framed) natural earth pigments on masonite PROVENANCE Papunya Tula, 19th consignment to Stuart Art Centre Private Collection, Canada Accompanied by an original Papunya Tula label verso LITERATURE Included in notes and inventory for the early consignments of Pitupi paintings through Pat Hogan in Dot and Circle, A retrospective survey of the Aboriginal Acrylic Paintings of Central Australia, RMIT 1986 pg. 57 Rf. For similar works stylistically of the same period see Aboriginal Art of Western Desert by Geoff Barton, RIGBY 1979 pp. 30-31 EST $30,000 - 50,000

Long Jack Phillipus was an instrumental member of the group involved in creating the famous mural that marked the beginning of the contemporary Western Desert art movement. He participated in the secret discussions amongst the senior law men and later told Bardon that the Honey Ant design was a gift, ‘given to the white man’s school’ by ceremonial leaders. As school yardsman, he prepared the walls with cement rendering and coats of white primer and then later assisted Kaapa Tjampitjinpa and Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri in the mural painting itself.

Long Jack’s work was some of the first to sell in Alice Springs, spurring the other men on in their efforts and commitment. He was the owner of the principal Possum Dreaming site in the Gibson Desert, Ngamarunya, which featured strongly as a subject of his art. His painting style appealed to the public with its symmetrical balance and stylised figurative elements. While he leaned towards a softer, slightly more decorative approach, by using the traditional earth colours in more harmonious ways than a number of the other men, he still achieved the striking effects that first grabbed the attention of the Australian art world during the early years of the art movement.

During the early 1970’s Long Jack served on the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council and created some of Papunya Tula’s largest early canvases for the board’s overseas exhibition program.

In this very early Possum Dreaming work the curving line with tracks are the long journeys of the possum spirit men, the oval shapes are shields decorated with possum markings, and the oblique bands represent body paint on the corroboree performers.

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37 CLIFFORD POSSUM TJAPALTJARRI (1932 - 2002) LOVE STORY, 1996

122.5 x 121 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Artspeak Studio Gallery, Vic Cat No. HS554CPT Private Collection, Vic Signed verso Clifford Possum EST $18,000 - 25,000

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This is the tale of incestuous lust and the magical spells cast by an old Tjungurrayi man called Lintipilinti in order to seduce a woman of the wrong skin. To achieve this elicit end, Lintipilinti uses sacred songs and a hairstring spindle that he made from his own hair and a pair of thin sticks. The man is depicted as a large U shape with a club that he carries beside him. The club has multiple meanings in the sacred version of this mythology, yet even in the public version it is menacing. The object of his desire is a wrong skinned Napangardi woman who is travelling from Yuelamu (Mount Allen) looking for the native sugar that is found in abundance on Eucalyptus leaves where it is deposited by small flying ants.

The woman does not realise until too late that she is being stalked by the Tungurrayi who is telepathically calling her to him while using ritual paraphenalia and a sacred ground painting. Overcome by lust the Tjugurrayai man drops the hair string that he is braiding and it scatters like love on the wind. A whirlwind blows in an attempt to destroy his love magic but it is to no avail. Though she is a strictly forbidden sexual partner, Lintipilinti shows no concern. Eventually he will be punished at another place for his indiscretion. But this part of the narrative takes place at Ngarlu (Red Hill) where a small oval shaped rockhole water source is found ( seen nestling in the U representing Lintipilinti). If prospective lovers drink from the well it is said to have a powerful effect upon them.

38 ROVER THOMAS JOOLAMA (1926 - 1998) THREE OWLS AT POMPEI PILLAR, 1981 98 x 61.5 cm, 102 x 65.5 cm (framed) natural earth pigment on plywood PROVENANCE Neil McLeod Fine Arts,Vic Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Neil McLeod Fine Arts EST $60,000 - 80,000

In this painting Rover depicts the Mook Mook Owl and her young at a place called Tunnel Creek at the Blue Tongue Lizard Dreaming site near the Argyle mine turnoff. The black circle represents a cave and the arch represents its entrance.

The Spotted Nightjar and the Owlet Nightjar who in human form created the moieties and the rules of marriage, and other cultural practices are two of the most important totemic beings in the Kimberley region in the North West of Australia. They are associated with Wandjina beings known as Wanalirri, and through the Wunan exchange ceremonial cycle which the owls created, spread affiliation with the Wandjina to the tribes of the East Kimberley. The Wanalirri song cycle composed in 1972 by the Worora elder, Wattie Ngerdu, relates a battle between the Wandjina and humans over the treatment of the owls by children. The ensuing battle is believed to have come close to resulting in the destruction of the human race.

The Ancestral Owl, which goes by a number of names, including Mook Mook, is one of the few subjects that the Rover Thomas rendered in a naturalistic fashion in his paintings.

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NADJALGALA WURRAMARA (1922 - c.1990)

CRUSOE GUNINGBAL (1922 - 1984)

WIND AND FROG DREAMING, 1981

MIMIH, 1980

PROVENANCE Collected Groote Eylandt by Dorothy Bennett, NT Private Collection, NSW

PROVENANCE Ray Hughes Collection, NSW Private Collection, NSW

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity verso and a letter from Dorothy Bennett

EST $5,000 - 7,000

93 x 51 cm natural earth pigments on bark

EST $2,000 - 3,000

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117 x 8 x 6 cm natural earth pigments on wood

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GALI YALKARRIWUY GURRUWIWI (1942 - 2020)

GALI YALKARRIWUY GURRUWIWI (1942 - 2020)

MORNING STAR POLE, 2009

BETHLEHEM STORY (1, 2 & 3), 2000

PROVENANCE Elcho Island Arts, NT, Cat No. 09-1716 Private Collection, NSW

PROVENANCE Elcho Island Art and Craft, NT Cat No. 14/3667/YAL Private Collection, NSW

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Elcho Island Arts

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Elcho Island Art and Craft

EST $3,000 - 4,000

EST $3,000 - 5,000

257 x 16 x 16 cm (irregular) wood, feathers, earth pigment, bush string, dyes

51 x 51 cm each natural earth pigments and acrylic on canvas

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43 JOHN NAMERREDJE GUYMALA (1926 - c.1978) ROCK KANGAROO AND SNAKE, 1963 43 x 71 cm natural earth pigments on bark

PROVENANCE Collected Oenpelli, NT Church Missionary Society, Aboriginal Art Centre, NSW Cat No. E412 Private Collection, NSW EST $2,000 - 3,000

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Namerredje was a superb draftsman with a recognisably individual ‘hand’.The beautifully articulated patterns of rarrk that decorate his figures epitomise the Bininj notion of aesthetics in painting referred to as kabimbebme, literally ‘colour coming out’.

In 1973, Namerredje and his family moved to Yaymini outstation, far to the south of Maningrida, which they shared with Wally Mandarrk and his family.

In the 1970s, his work was collected by the Aboriginal Arts Board and by the American collector and professor of English literature, Ed Ruhe.

Namerredje’s paintings were selected for The Art of Aboriginal Australia, which toured North America in 1974 till 1976, as well as Kunwinjku Bim at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1984.

In this early work, Namerredje employs the traditional Oenpelli X Ray rock art style to show the internal organs of a kangaroo, and uses his traditional parallel rarrk in a style like his countryman Lofty Nadjamerrek. It is typical of Namerredje that his works are painted on bark with a monochrome background with just one or two dominant figurative elements. His later works abandon the X Ray style, but maintain the monochrome background.

These later paintings use cross hatching or blocks of colour instead of parallel line work. He is likely to have been under the influence of Wally Mandarrk at the time.

44 SAM MANGGUDJA GARNARRADJ (1909 - c.1980) THE RED KANGAROO, 1969 83 x 42 cm natural earth pigments on stringy bark

PROVENANCE Collected Oenpelli, NT Church Missionary Society, Aboriginal Art Centre, NSW Cat No. D109 N.S Private Collection, USA Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Church Missionary Society EST $2,000 - 3,000

Samuel Manggudja (Garnarradj) was born in the Gumaderr River region of Western Arnhem Land, and spent his early years living a traditional life.

His father took him to Goulburn Island Mission as a young boy and he attended school there. Later, in 1930, he went to join his promised wife in Gunbalanya (Oenpelli), where he lived for the rest of his life. Manggudja had strong knowledge of ceremonial matters, and was a key assistant in the research work conducted by the anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt in Gunbalanya in the late 1940s. Ronald Berndt collected a number of paintings by Manggudja in 1947, and these are now housed in the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia, Perth.

Manggudja’s work in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, is part of the extensive gift by Dr Stuart Scougall, and dates from 1960. These works characteristically feature dotted infill within the figurative elements, a style that relates strongly to the rock art of Manggudja’s clan lands. It was only later, in the 1970s, that the crosshatched infill, borrowed from ceremonial painting, became a ubiquitous style in the Western Arnhem Land region.

Manggudja continued to develop as an artist throughout the 1970s and his works were included in exhibitions arranged by the then Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council and in its Oenpelli Bark Painting publication of 1979. Samuel Manggudja served on the Aboriginal Arts Board from 1973 to 1975*. *Luke Taylor in ‘Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014

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a. Front

45 WILLY TJUNGURRAYI (c.1932 - ) a. TINGARI COOLAMON created c.1980 and painted by Willy Tjungurrayi in 2010 65 x 25 x 9 cm synthetic polymer paint on carved beanwood

RONNIE TJAMPITJINPA (c.1942 - ) b. TINGARI SHIELD created c.1940 and painted by Ronnie Tjampitjinpa in 2010 69 x 20 x 6 cm synthetic polymer paint on carved beanwood PROVENANCE Field Collected, NT Private Collection, SA Accompanied with working photos of the artists holding the artworks EST $6,000 - 9,000 54

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b. Front

b. Back

46 PEG LEG TJAMPITJINPA (1920 - 2006) UNTITLED, 2003

152.5 x 182 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. PL200314 Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Private Collection, Vic

The Tingari Cycle is a secret song cycle sacred to initiated men. The Tingari are Dreamtime Beings who travelled across the landscape performing ceremonies to create and shape the country associated with Dreaming sites. The Tingari ancestors gathered at these sites for Maliera (initiation) ceremonies. The sites take the form of, and are located at, significant rockholes, sand hills, sacred mountains, and water soakages in the Western Desert. Tingari may be poetically interpreted as song-line paintings relating to the songs (of the people) and creation stories (of places) in Pintupi mythology.

Pegleg was Pinta Pinta Tjapanangka’s friend. It has been noted that their works, in their economy of form and colour, came to symbolise a return to the scale and temperament of the early years.

EST $25,000 - 35,000

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47 NYURAPAYIA NAMPITJINPA (MRS BENNETT) (1935 - 2013) UNTITLED, 2008

122 x 152 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. MRS200804 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H12397 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by two working photographs ILLUSTRATED Ken McGreggor and Ralph Hobbs, The Art of Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa (Mrs. Bennett), Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2014, illustrated p.120, photograph of artist working EST $20,000 - 30,000

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Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa was born near the site of today’s Docker River community. She saw no white men until she was in her teens and spent much of her childhood at Pangkupirri, a set of sheltered rockholes deep in the range-folds of the Gibson Desert. By the time she walked in from the bush to the ration depot at Haasts Bluff and encountered mission life she was a healer and was soon recognised as a person of great ritual authority.

She moved to Kintore, the new western settlement of the Pintupi, closer to her traditional lands, and then on to Tjukurla, across the Western Australian border in the 1980s.

Nyurapayia, was a close associate of the key painters who shaped the women’s painting movement in the early to mid-1990s. She painted only relatively minor formulaic works for Papunya Tula, before Chris Simon took her on, and rebuilt his Yanda Art business around her. Living comfortably under Simons’ wing she hit her creative peak painting large, complex canvases depicting her ancestral rockholes in dark, curved lines on black or white, shimmering grounds.

Her depictions of the sand-dune country and surrounding rocky outcrops bear a relationship to the designs used for body painting during the inma ceremonial dance. At the time of her death in February 2013, Nyurapayia had reached the pinnacle of desert law and sacred knowledge and was revered by women throughout the Western desert.

48 NAATA NUNGURRAYI (1932 - 2021) MARRAPINTI, 2012

122 x 152.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. NA201241 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a photograph of the artist with the finished artwork EST $30,000 - 40,000

Naata Nungurrayi was about 30 years of age in 1963 when she and her family were trucked by the ‘welfare patrol’ and resettled in Papunya. Forced to leave behind her beloved desert homelands, the memory of these places and the life she led there, provided the inspiration and the subject matter for her paintings when she began working for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996.

Naata’s paintings combine the carefully composed geometric style that developed at Papunya amongst the Pintupi painting men, with the looser technique and more painterly organic style introduced by the women after the painting camps of the early and mid 1990s.

This work depicts designs associated with the rockhole and soakage water site of Marrapinti, to the west of the Pollock Hills in Western Australia.

The lines are sand hills surrounding the area and the roundels represent rock holes. A large group of senior women camped at this place. They are depicted in this painting as U shapes sitting in groups. The myth relating to these women tells of how they first made the nose-bones which are traditionally worn through a hole in the nose web. These nose-bones were originally worn by both men and women but are now only worn by the older generation on ceremonial occasions.

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49 GINGER RILEY MUNDUWALAWALA (c.1936 - 2002) FISHING AND HUNTING IN LIMMEN BIGHT, 1987 178 x 124 cm, 181.5 x 127 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on cotton duck PROVENANCE Ngukurr Art Centre, NT Cat No. GR4 and No GR16 Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Qld Private Collection, Qld LITERATURE Cf. for related works created in 1987 currently held in the Holmes à Court collection see Judith Ryan, Ginger Riley, National Gallery of Victoria 1997 EST $80,000 - 100,000

This seminal work was executed by Munduwalawala in the first year of his art production. It comprises two separate paintings—respectively catalogued (verso) as GR4 (top half) and GR16 (bottom half), which would indicate they were the fourth and sixteenth paintings the artist completed. The upper and lower paintings depict separate stories in comic-strip format, with the narratives seeming to flow from line to line; although the directions and sequences are not clearly apparent.

The two upper lines of the top picture, which is painted in solid primary colours on a negative ground, depict estuarine and sea creatures, both large and small, including: crocodile, turtle, dugong, sea snake, starfish, crab, shell-fish, saw fish, stingray, squid and a variety of pelagic fish. At right in the painting’s bottom line, men fish from a boat. On the adjacent shore, a man with modern and customary weapons is accompanied by a woman and two dogs. They are separated by wallabies, an echidna and two dugong from their quarry who are entrapped in the fishers’ net.

The lower picture is painted in more muted tones than the upper one.

Comprising four lines of narrative, this picture depicts a wide variety of sea, river and land animals and their hunters. The uppermost line depicts what appears to be a meandering shoreline, with various hunting (and possibly ceremonial) implements sitting on each promontory, as if waiting for use. The second line introduces a hunter teaching his son ‘tricks of the trade’. The pair are surrounded by a plenitude of game, including wallaby, crab, turtle, squid, dugong and various fish. However, lurking menacingly is a crocodile to which they might become prey. The third line features fish, crab, a turtle caught in a fishing net, a charming vignette of a crocodile with a bird on its head and, slightly out of context, a cassowary. The bottom line of this picture features a row of hands within an abstract zig-zag pattern, most likely depicting rock art from a nearby sacred site.

Interestingly, the painting has a number of red wine stains and a clear bottle mark in its bottom right quadrant. These attest to the painting’s previous role as a tablecloth. At a later time, the painting was used as a curtain and the tiny clip marks are seen on its upper border. Maybe it is Indigenous Australia’s version of the Shroud of Turin.

This painting is closely associated in style and content with a slightly larger, later and more typical painting entitled Limmen Bight Country 1987.

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Artwork image is restricted by Copyright. Request images auctions@cooeeart.ocm.au AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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50 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910 - 1996) ARLATYEYE - BUSH POTATO, 1994 150.5 x 121.5 cm, 152.5 x 123.5 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, NT Cat No. 94B019 The Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands Private Collection, Vic Signed front lower right side Emily Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Delmore Gallery EXHIBITED Schittering/Brilliance, AAMU - Museum for Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 12 October 2007 - 23 March 2008 Desert Painters of Australia, Two Generations, Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, September 24–November 7, 2020 EST $150,000 - 180,000 60

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Emily Kngwarreye’s paintings of wildflowers reflect a stage in the growth cycle of the wild yam. Emily’s middle name Kame is taken from the yam Dreaming site at Alhalkere. The nutritional value of the yam is hidden underground, in the swollen roots and their pod-like attachments which are difficult to locate as the plant’s unpredictable growth patterns make harvest complicated and specialised.

Traditionally, much effort is expended across large areas in the harvest of this valuable food.

Emily’s yam story can be found in all her work, even though in some paintings the yam motif is not obvious, it lies below the surface of them all.

This painting is accompanied by documentation from Delmore Gallery which reads: ‘Emily’s country, Alalgura, has many varieties of bush tucker and animals associated with it. Often she will select a tree, vine or fruit-bearing plant, whose seed, fruit, leaves and flowers will lie on, above or below the earth and intermingle with other forms of life in that preferred area. In this instance, it is the ‘arlatyeye’, or bush potato, whose form is hinted at here with a pale line revealing the underground root of the bush potato plant. At a dry time, the potato lies underground waiting to be either harvested or rejuvenated by rain.

Amongst the potato plant leaves and flowers, are the flowers of the ‘Wingea’, a prickly plant that produces a nutritious and drinkable juice. Emily Kngwarreye’s work must be looked on with an understanding that ritual ensures the fertility of future generations of both animal and plant life. The species that Emily has custodial responsibility for are sung about in ceremony. They require particular preparation such as food and medicine. Emily’s ancestors had the same responsibility to pass on their knowledge about these species.’

51 MIRDIDINGKINGATHI JUWARNDA (SALLY GABORI) (1924 - 2015) DIBIRDIBI COUNTRY, 2008

198 x 100 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Mornington Island Art, Qld Cat No. 3739-L-SG-1008 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Mornington Island Art EXHIBITED Sally Gabori, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda, Cooee Art Redfern, NSW, March 25 - April 10 2021 ILLUSTRATED Djon Mundine and Candida Baker, Gabori,The Corrigan Collection of Paintings

by Sally Gabori, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2015, Illustrated p. 85

The Lardil people in the Kaiadilt community on Bentinck Island in Far North Queensland had little exposure to fine art, or any comparable form of markmaking, prior to 2005 when Sally Gabori first picked up a paintbrush at 81 years of age.Traditional tools, objects, or bodies were scarcely painted, and the only recorded art that relates these stories was a group of drawings made at the request of ethnologist Norman B Tindale during his expedition to Bentinck Island in 1960, now housed in the South Australian Museum.

Gabori’s paintings are essentially concerned with meaningful sites, known through the artist’s intimate association during a lifetime spent on Bentinck Island. These sites are associated with tidal movement, seasonal change, major climatic events such as drought, and flood, and the presence of plants, sea birds, animals, and aquatic life. Gabori was mindful of the ebb and flow of life over all the seasons that made up her own long life. As Djon Mundine eloquently put it. ‘Her works can be thought of as a memory walk, and a mapping of her physical and social memory of Bentinck Island’.* * Djon Mundine, The Road to Bentinck Island: Sally Gabori, in The Corrigan Collection of Paintings by Sally Gabori, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2015

EST $18,000 - 22,000

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52 YARITJI YOUNG (c.1956 - ) TJALA TJUKURPA - HONEY ANT STORY, 2020

Yaritji Young is a senior Pitjantjatjara woman who lives and works in Amata, in the far north of South Australia. Her vibrant, gestural paintings depict the spectacular desert landscape of her Country and tell the story of the Tjala, the Honey Ant; an important creation story for the Pitjantjatjara people.

152 x 198 cm, 155 x 201 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

In this work, the Tjala or Honey Ants, which are found about a metre underground beneath Mulga trees make their way down tunnels to their nests (nyinantu) and larvae (ipilyka-ipilyka).

PROVENANCE Tjala Arts, SA Cat No. GBG0220779 Private Collection, NSW

Honey Ants are a highly favoured food source. When the Pitjantjatjara go looking for Honey Ants they look for the drill holes under the trees.

When they see them, they shovel and dig down, following the tunnels to find the Ants inside. They suck the honey- like liquid from the abdomen of the Honey Ant. The story of the Honey Ant is told across the Northern Territory into South Australia. The Honey Ant is an important link between Anangu mythology and inter-dependence on the environment.

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Tjala Arts EST $20,000 - 25,000

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The Honey Ant Ancestors are related to the country around Amata.

53 MINNIE PWERLE (1910 - 2006) BUSH MELON SEED, 2004

101 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Russell Guy, NT Cat No. RG100 Mossenson Galleries, Vic Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H7723 Private Collection, NSW EST $9,000 - 12,000

Minnie Pwerle began painting depictions of her country, Atnwengerrp, and its Dreamings when in her late 70s. There are many parallels in the careers of Minnie Pwerle and that of her countrywoman the great Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Both began painting late in life and both created work for a period of seven years. Both painted the majority of their works equally gesturally and produced a prodigious output. Both artists painted works that were immediately popular, most especially amongst women, and were able to support a number of close relatives with the income they generated.

Indeed the comparison between the two women, who were sisters-in-law, extended to their fundamental feelings of reverence, abandon and intuition.

The manner in which they created their works appeared to be the result of an urgency to reconnect to the past and to keep the Dreaming a living reality. Just like Emily Kngwarreye before her, in painting after painting Minnie boldly and self-assuredly depicted the body designs painted onto women’s breasts and limbs for the regular ceremonial revivification of her country.

While the rambling tuberous roots of the Yam or Bush Potato were Emily’s Dreamings and the subject of her art, Minnie’s primary focus was the Bush Melon and its seeds. Her Awelye-Antnwengerrp paintings drew directly from these ceremonial practices, depicting bush melon, seed, and breast designs in powerful multi-coloured brushstrokes that built into a structured patchwork of luminous colour most often emanating from within a darker under-layer. The energy of these vibrant colourful works seemed to capture the joy of coming across these sweet bush foods, now scarce and difficult to find.

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54 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910 - 1996) YAM DREAMING, 1996

The subject of this work is Arlatyey, the Pencil Yam or Bush Potato. This is a valuable food source and the subject of important songs, dances, and ceremonies amongst Eastern Anmatyerre people. It was the subject of a great number of Emily Kngwarreye’s paintings, which were created in a vast array of vibrant colours.

PROVENANCE Dacou Gallery, SA Cat No. EK477 / SS119796 Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. AGOD7019 Private Collection, Vic

In this painting, Emily has characterised the roots of the yam in the plant’s full period of maturity. As the foliage dies off, cracks appear in the ground, which trace the root system, and indicate that the engorged tubers are ready to be dug up and eaten. Solid lines, stark and unadorned, trace the meandering paths of the pencil yam roots as they forge their way through the desert sands.

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born at Anilitye (Boundary Bore) and began painting on canvas in her late 70s. She was awarded the Australian Creative Fellowship in 1992 and continued painting prolifically until her death in 1996.

122 x 92 cm, 128.5 x 98 cm (framed) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

EST $90,000 - 110,000

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55 YANNIMA TOMMY WATSON (c.1935 - 2017) IYARKA, ADJACENT TO MOUNT CONNOR, 2015 183 x 305 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. TW201513 Private Collection, France EST $70,000 - 100,000

In this major work by Pitjantjatjara elder Tommy Watson he has depicted an important meeting place for hunting and camping with family members. The waterhole near Iyarka was a meeting place for all.

Watson began painting in 2001 when in his 70s and in a very short time took the Aboriginal Art world by storm. His subjects were centered on his homeland, Anamarapiti, in the far reaches of the South Western Desert. His works convey immense visual power through rich but minimal colour fields.

According to Judith Ryan, senior curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, Watson produced work that was ‘inward and liturgical which, in common with the early boards of the Pintupi men, exhibits incandescence’. Grounded in his paintings are rockholes, mountain ranges, and creek beds. However, these are transmitted to us through his works in waves of light. Many of his paintings are, in fact, evocative of nuclear shock waves, light waves, and explosions.

Tommy Watson’s prominence was cemented when, in 2006, he was commissioned to create a permanent installation in the Musee du Quai Branly, in Paris. He went on to create a number of magnificent paintings in the years prior to his death in 2017.

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56 KUDDITJI KNGWARREYE (1938 - 2017) MY COUNTRY, 2007

153 x 135 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. AGOD/11961 Private Collection, Vic Signed verso Kuddtji Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings with booklet including photographs of artist working EST $4,000 - 6,000

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The younger brother of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Kudditji had a traditional bush upbringing in the Utopia region. Prior to painting, he had numerous jobs throughout the Central as a stockman, and also worked in mineral and gold mines. He became a traditional custodian of many important Dreamings of the land and Men’s Business, as well as ceremonial sites located in his country at Utopia Station, about 230 km north east of Alice Springs.

He began painting symmetrical dotted paintings in the early 1980s, beginning to develop this highly intuitive and gestural style after seeing Emily catapult onto the Australian and International Art scene in the 1990s.Thereafter, his artworks became known for their bold colour use and intuitive interplay with space and form.

With a heavy loaded brush, he painted his country using broad strokes and a combination of bold colours and soft fusions, accentuating the natural colours of land and sky over various seasons. This painting depicts an interpretation of the Emu Dreaming site and ceremonies associated with Men’s Business.

57 GLORIA PETYARRE (1942 - 2021) BUSH MEDICINE LEAVES, 2004 140 x 230 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Palya Proper Fine Art, NT Cat No. 0416127929 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H11413 Private Collection, NSW EST $12,000 - 18,000

Raised in a remote part of the Eastern Desert and initiated into Eastern Anmatyerre law and traditions, Gloria Petyarre participated in the first art programs organised at Utopia in 1977 when she was 39 years of age. These early batik-making workshops marked the emergence of Aboriginal women artists as a force in the desert painting movement.

This highly accomplished work represents the leaves of the Kurrajong tree, used in the Utopia region to treat a variety of ailments. The women collect the leaves, then dry and mix them with Kangaroo fat in order to extract the plant’s medicinal qualities.The significance of the Kurrajong tree and the part it plays in healing is celebrated in the Women’s Awelye ceremonies.

In painting the Bush Medicine Leaf story, Gloria pays homage to the spirit of the medicinal plant. By re-creating its image, she encourages its regeneration, so that her people can continue to benefit from its healing powers.

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58 IAN WALDRON (1950 - ) MORR MORR GOOD NEWS STORY, 2003 120 x 60 cm each, 120 x 240 cm (overall) synthetic polymer paint on board tiles PROVENANCE Fireworks Gallery, Qld Private Collection, NSW signed verso EXHIBITED Finalist, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Art Awards, MAGNT, 2003 EST $6,000 - 8,000

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Ian worked in various industries before studying Visual Arts at the Northern Territory University in the mid 1990s. Throughout his art practice, he pays tribute to the story of the Kurtjar people in his homeland on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Ian has worked prolifically in his studio in Far North Queensland over the last years. He developed a number of series, focusing on paintings and installations. Recurring subject matters in his works comprise characters, sites, and memories, which are important to the artist, such as Bloodwood totem and black cockatoo.

Ian was the winner of the 2010 Glover Prize,Tasmania, and has been selected as a finalist three times in The Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW. His works are held in numerous private and public collections nationally.* * Courtesy of Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane

59 MINNIE PWERLE (1910 - 2006) BUSH MELON SEED, 2001

90 x 120 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. AGOD9203 Private Collection, USA EST $5,000 - 6,000

Born in the Eastern Desert, Minnie Pwerle did not become a painter until 1999, by which time she was in her late 70s. Her work was driven by an urgency to reconnect to the past and to keep the Dreaming a living reality.

In painting after painting, she depicted the body designs applied to her clanswomen’s breasts and limbs for the regular ceremonial revivification of their country.

These bold linear patterns of stripes and curves evoke the movement of the women as they dance during ceremony. After smearing their bodies with animal fat, they trace these designs onto their chests, arms and thighs, singing as each woman has a turn to be ‘painted up’. Then, often by firelight (as is evoked in this particular work), the women dance in formation, accompanied by ritual singing. The songs relate to the Dreamtime stories of ancestral travel as well as plants, animals, and natural forces.

Awelye - Women’s Ceremony demonstrates respect for the land. In performing these ceremonies they ensure well-being and happiness within their community.

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60 KATHLEEN PETYARRE (1940 - 2018) MOUNTAIN DEVIL LIZARD DREAMING - SANDHILL COUNTRY, 1999 183 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Gallerie Australis, SA Cat No. GAKP0899202 Cooee Art, NSW Private Collection, Belgium EXHIBITED Paintings by Kathleen Petyarre, Cooee Art Gallery and Gallerie Australis, Sydney, NSW, 1999 Genius of Place: The work of Kathleen Petyarre, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW, 2001 ILLUSTRATED Christine Nicholls and Ian North, Kathleen Petyarre, Genius of Place, Wakefield Press, SA, 2001, p. 70 illustrated EST $40,000 - 60,000 70

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Katheen Petyarre is best known for her finely wrought, intimate renditions of the vast landscapes in the Eastern Desert. These were created during the epic journeys of her Dreaming ancestor and totem, the tiny Thorny Devil Lizard, referred to as ‘that Old Woman Mountain Devil’.

This tiny desert creature is believed to have created the vast desert home of the Eastern Anmatyerre people by moving the sand, grain by grain, since the dawn of time. Petyarre and her clanswomen believed that they are its descendants, and have therefore inherited the responsibility for caring and nurturing the vast landscape that she depicted so intimately and carefully in her paintings.

Petyarre’s process leading to these sumptuous paintings took years to perfect. In this painting she presents an aerial view composition of her sacred Dreaming site (home of the Mountain Devil Lizard) in the vicinity of Mosquito Bore on Utopia Station. It is here at this site that the men and women of the eastern Anmatyerre language conduct important secret and sacred initiation ceremonies. This Dreaming site is situated in the artist’s father’s country and the general locality is identified by a group of sandhills. The painting portrays the area scattered with seeds, summer bush flowers and Spinifex grasses.The sand-hills conceal a sacred Women’s Dreaming site associated with the green pea (antweth).

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61 TURKEY TOLSON TJUPURRULA (1942 - 2001) STRAIGHTENING SPEARS, 1998 150 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Papunya Tula, NT Cat No. TT980706 Private Collection, Vic EST $50,000 - 70,000

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Turkey Tolson joined Papunya Tula artists as one of its youngest members, painting his earliest artworks for Geoff Bardon in 1972. He was amongst the most innovative and figurative artists of the Papunya Tula movement’s early days.

Throughout the 1980s,Tolson’s unassuming leadership style and commitment to the community, combined with his individual approach, became the hallmarks of an enduring career. He introduced his Spear Straightening imagery around 1990 and returned to it again and again thereafter. In time, it became his leitmotif.

In this beautiful example, the horizontal bands of dots evoke the shimmering heat and vast distances of the artist’s desert country. In the Dreaming, the Mitukatjirri Men travelled from a claypan at Tjulula to Llyingaungau, a rocky outcrop far to the west of Alice Springs, where they made camp. A group of men entered the country from Tjikari, to the north. A fight ensued, after which the Mitukatjarri Men travelled to the nearby cave where they made their ceremonies. The parallel bands of dots represent spears, which the men straightened by warming the wood over a fire, bending it into shape as they waited for the men from Tjikari to arrive.

62 MICK NAMARARI TJAPALTJARRI (1926 - 1998) MOUSE DREAMING, 1996

120.5 x 200 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Kimberley Art, Vic Cat No. KA00119 Private Collection, Vic Lawson~Menzies, Aboriginal Art, Lot 178, Sydney, May 2006 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Kimberley Art Gallery EST $40,000 - 50,000

During a career that spanned almost three decades, the variety of subjects and diversity of stylistic approaches adopted by Mick Namarari kept him at the forefront of the Western Desert painting movement.

Driven to paint, regardless of the materials at hand, his early works were closely tied to narrative. Symbolic designs were painted, often on a rich, earthy background with a sharpness of line that imbued them with a remarkable clarity.

He is, however, more importantly credited as having played the decisive role in propelling Papunya Tula art away from the edifice of Tingari cartography and towards the ethereal minimalism typical of 1990s Pintupi men’s art. These non-figurative and non-iconographic paintings are exemplified by this Mouse Dreaming work, in which the broader spiritual relationship between the human and non-human world manifests itself in his representation of space. The hypnotic minimalist field of dots suggests the microscopic life of the desert and the intimate placement of the artist within his subject, not separate from it.

This painting depicts the Mouse Dreaming at the site of Tjunginpa, a hill site north-west of the Kintore community. The overall dotting represents the footprints of the mouse and also kampurarrpa, an edible berry which is eaten by the mouse. Men of Tjapaltjarri kinship subsection are custodians for the ceremonies associated with this mythology.

Mick Namarari was the first recipient of Aboriginal Australia’s highest cultural accolade, the Australia Council’s Red Ochre Award, presented to him in 1994, four years prior to his death.

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63 REGINA WILSON (1948 - ) SYAW (FISH NET), 2006

198 x 157 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas PROVENANCE Gifted to the current owner by the artist and her husband Private Collection, NSW EXHIBITED Songlines - Connecting Country, Aptos Cruz Galleries, SA, 2020 EST $18,000 - 22,000

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The subject matter of Regina’s works is based around the practice of weaving fibre art – skills she inherited from her grandmother and mother.

Regina Pilawuk Wilson was born in 1948 in the Daly River region of the Northern Territory. In 1973, together with her husband, Harold Wilson, she founded the Peppimenarti community as a permanent settlement. The location of the community is an important dreaming site situated amid wetlands and floodplains at the centre of the Daly River Aboriginal Reserve, 300 kilometres south-west of Darwin.

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ARTIST ONCE KNOWN

ARTIST ONCE KNOWN

a. BOOMERANG, c.1900

a. CENTRAL DESERT BOOMERANG, c. 1940

b. THROWING 61.5 x 4 cm carved hardwood

b. HOOKED BOOMERANG, c. 1950

83.5 x 7 cm carved hardwood

CLUB, c.1900

75 x 10 cm carved hardwood 74 x 27 cm carved hardwood

PROVENANCE Field Collected, Qld Private Collection, SA

PROVENANCE Field Collected, NT Private Collection, SA

EST $1,500 - 2,500

EST $800 - 1,200

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BALUKA MAYMURU (1947 - )

MALALUBA GUMANA (1955 - )

DHAKANDJALI, 2003

DHATAM - LARRAKITJ, 2013

238 x 19 x 19 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood

176 x 14 x 14 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood

PROVENANCE Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, NT Cat No. 2182G Private Collection, NSW Caruana & Reid Fine Art, NSW Private Collection, NSW

PROVENANCE Buku–Larrnggay Mulka, NT Cat No. 4301K Private Collection, NSW

EST $5,500 - 6,500

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Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Buku–Larrnggay Mulkaking EST $3,000 - 5,000

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GARAWAN WANAMBI (1965 - )

IVAN NAMIRRKKI (1961 - )

MARRANGU - LARRIKITJ, 2011

LORRKON, 2008

PROVENANCE Buku–Larrnggay Mulka, NT Cat No. 4123U Private Collection, NSW

PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts and Culture Centre, NT Cat. No 1250-08 Private Collection, NSW

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Buku–Larrnggay Mulka

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Maningrida Arts

203 x 14.5 x 14.5 cm natural earth pigment on wood

203 x 12 x 12 cm natural earth pigments on wood

EST $9,000 - 12,000

EST $5,000 - 8,000

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70 PADDY JAMINJI JAMPIN (c.1912 - 1996) DEVIL DEVIL, C.1982

45 x 123.5 cm, 49 x 128 cm (framed) natural earth pigments on composition board PROVENANCE Field Collected, WA Private Collection, Vic Lawson~Menzies, Aboriginal Fine Art, Lot 212, Sydney, June 2007 Private Collection, NSW EST $18,000 - 25,000

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Paddy Jaminji was born on Bedford Downs station in the North East Kimberley and spent most of his life working as a stockman on both Bedford Downs and Old Lissadell Stations. He was the first painter in Turkey Creek after a strike by Kimberley station workers in the mid 1970s signalled a mass Aboriginal exodus from cattle properties. Uncle to Rover Thomas, he was the inspiration behind Rover’s decision to paint and went on to inspire many others including Lena Nyadbi.

The Devil Devil, Maginta, the spirit of Tuwarrin, is killed by another Devil Devil, Yulamangi, the boss of the Gurirr Gurirr balga when she tries to steal the ceremony.This part of the Dreaming narrative devised by Rover Thomas is directly related to Bedford Downs, the site of a massacre which occurred in the 1920s.

71 PADDY BEDFORD (1922 - 2007) WIN BIL JI - OLD BEDFORD STATION, 2001 93 x 127 cm natural earth pigments on canvas

PROVENANCE Neil McLeod Fine Art, Vic Cat No. NM4003 Art Mob, Tas Cat No. AM1102/03 Private Collection, NSW Signed verso PB Accompanied by four working photographs and one of the artist holding the finished artwork EST $18,000 - 25,000

Paddy Bedford (Nyunkuny) was born in 1922 at Ngarrmaliny on Bedford Downs cattle station in the East Kimberley and grew up leading an active ceremonial life while working as a stockman on Old Bedford, Old Greenvale, and Bow River cattle stations.

Though he had been involved with ceremonial painting all his life, it was by chance that a gallery dealer happened upon some of his boards in a rubbish tip in the mid 1990s. He subsequently participated in two workshops organised by ethnographer and field collector Neil McLeod, that were conducted at the home of his contemporary and friend Jack Dale in 1997 and 1998, before Bedford joined Freddie Timms as a founding member of the Jirrawun Arts collective in 1998.

This work depicts Police Rock Hole (or Win Bil Ji) as it was originally recorded by McLeod. Located on Old Bedford Station, its Gidja name is more familiarly recorded as Winperrji.This is an important site for the White Cockatoo Dreaming that is central to many of the creation stories from the Kimberley. The work can be read as both abstract and narrative, and as an overview of the landscape. The articulation of forms defined by lines of white dotting which appear to float across the canvas, are reminiscent of Rover Thomas’s work.

In 2006, Paddy Bedford was selected as one of eight Aboriginal artists to contribute designs for the buildings of the Musée du quai Branly, Paris. Later that year he was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

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72 JACK BRITTEN (c.1921 - 2001) UNTITLED, 1987

99 x 94 cm natural earth pigments on canvas PROVENANCE Rick Chapman, WA Private Collection, Qld Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, Lot 453, Melbourne, July 2004 Private Collection, NSW Signed verso Jack EST $3,500 - 5,500

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Jack Britten was born at Tickalara Station in the Northwest of Australia in the early 1920s. It was a time when many Gija people were massacred during the gold rush at Hall’s Creek and Chinaman’s Garden in the East Kimberley region.

He began painting earlier than the majority of his contemporaries, including Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. His grandparents taught him to paint using traditional materials, methods, and themes. As a consequence, in many of his canvases, most particularly the earliest ones, Britten used bush gum, sap from the Bloodwood tree, and kangaroo blood to bind the ochres.

Despite a vast repertoire of imagery, Jack Britten is most renowned for his renditions of Purnululu, the Bungle Bungle region, of which he became the most senior living custodian.Throughout his career he constantly drew inspiration from this land, painting the Bungle Bungle ranges as clusters of dome shaped mountains, layered with glistening white or black trails of dots.

73 QUEENIE MCKENZIE NAKARRA (1930 - 1998) DAHLOO NEAR OLD TEXAS HOMESTEAD, 1995 92 x 122 cm, 94 x 125 cm (framed) natural earth pigment on canvas PROVENANCE Neil McLeod Fine Art, Vic Private Collection Vic Signed verso Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Neil McLeod Fine Art Studio EST $24,000 - 28,000

Queenie McKenzie was born c.1930 at the Old Texas station on the Ord River north-west of Western Australia. As a young girl, she cooked for the stockmen, tending and riding horses and journeying as they drove cattle across the vast pastoral region of the north.

During the 1970s, Queenie played a leading role in community affairs, and experimented with representational art as one way to educate the local school where she taught Gija language and cultural traditions. By this time, Rover Thomas was receiving recognition and income from his painting practice and he encouraged Queenie to embark on her first artistic experiments. Mixing the traditional ochres herself, Queenie liked to create unique colours, particularly the soft pinks and purples which became the recognisable hallmark of her style.

In the accompanying certificate of authenticity from Warmun Traditional Artists, it states that ‘Queenie tells us of “Woman’s Country” on Texas Downs Station around Winnabun Springs, where men must not go because women hold ceremonies there.’

Just below where the spring (the black line running down the middle) comes out of the hills to join Blackfella Creek, we see a white flat rock.This is where the clear fresh water is collected all year round.

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74 ROVER THOMAS JOOLAMA (1926 - 1998) BEDFORD DOWNS, 1984 61 x 122 cm natural earth pigments on board

PROVENANCE Field Collected, WA Deutscher-Menzies, Fine Aboriginal Art and a Collection of New Ireland Malagan Sculptures, Lot 393, Melbourne, June 2000 Private Collection, USA EST $40,000 - 60,000

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Rover Thomas’ style is unique in the way that he simultaneously represents aerial and lateral perspectives on landscape. These two viewpoints enable the observer to see the country as one entity (the division between earth and sky was regarded by the artist as erroneous).

After working for a period as a jackaroo on the Canning Stock Route, Rover became a fencing contractor in Wyndham and later worked as a stockman in the Northern Territory. Returning to Western Australia, he worked on several cattle stations situated on the fringes of the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts including Bow River Station where he was married for the first time, and later at Texas Downs, Old Lissadell, and Mabel Downs adjacent to the Warmun community at Turkey Creek where he settled in his later years.

In this work, Rover has depicted the hills on Bedford Station where he worked as a stockman and where, according to oral history, Aboriginal people were killed after being poisoned with strychnine added to their food by station owner Paddy Quilty and his men in 1924. Only one man escaped to tell the tale by climbing Bedford Hill. He went on to be recognised as Major, a notorious bushranger who sought retribution until he was ambushed and killed a year later.

75 PADDY JAPANANGKA LEWIS (c.1943 - 2011) MINA MINA JUKURRPA, 2008

183 x 305 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H3141 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by seven working photographs EXHIBITED Paddy Lewis Japanangka, Solo Exhibition, Harvey Galleries and Yanda Gallery, Sydney, NSW, May 2008

Paddy Japanangka Lewis was born circa 1925, in the bush around Yuendumu/ Nyirripi in the Tanami Desert. Living a nomadic life as hunter-gatherers, his extended Warlpiri family travelled vast distances across desert country, showing Paddy his sites and teaching him the traditional ways of his country.

Though he began painting in the late 1990s, he began his most important body of work in 2006 and in 2008, Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery (now Harvey Galleries) in Sydney held his first ever solo show incorporating many of the most important works of his lifetime.

At the time of his death in 2011, he was a senior Warlpiri lawman and custodian of Mina Mina Lakes located more than 400 km north-west of Alice Springs. He was also the father of highly acclaimed artists Dorothy Napangardi Robertson and Margaret Lewis Napangardi, who also painted stories associated with this region.

Paddy was a multi-talented performer and, in 1999, he was featured in the film Marluku Wirlinyi: The Kangaroo Hunters, a tale that takes place in both the Dreamtime and the present day.

EST $80,000 - 120,000

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76 NYURAPAYIA NAMPITJINPA (MRS BENNETT) (1935 - 2013) UNTITLED, 2007

153 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. MRSB200748 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H114685 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by one working photograph and one of the artist with the completed artwork ILLUSTRATED Ken McGreggor and Ralph Hobbs, The Art of Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa (Mrs. Bennett), Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2014, illustrated p.111 EST $45,000 - 65,000

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Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa was born near the site of today’s Docker River community. She saw no white men until she was in her teens, and spent much of her childhood at Pangkupirri, a set of sheltered rockholes deep in the range-folds of the Gibson Desert. By the time she walked in from the bush to the ration depot at Haasts Bluff and encountered mission life, she was a healer and was soon recognised as a person of great ritual authority.

She moved to Kintore, the new western settlement of the Pintupi, closer to her traditional lands, and then in the 1980s, on to Tjukurla, across the West Australian border.

Nyurapayia was a close associate of key painters who shaped the women’s painting movement in the early to mid-1990s. She only painted relatively minor formulaic works for Papunya Tula, before Chris Simon took her on and rebuilt his Yanda Art business around her. Living comfortably under Simons’ wing, she hit her creative peak painting large, complex canvases depicting her ancestral rockholes in dark, curved lines on black or white shimmering grounds.

Her depictions of the sand-dune country and surrounding rocky outcrops bear a relationship to the designs used for body painting during the inma ceremonial dance. At the time of her death in February 2013, Nyurapayia had reached the pinnacle of desert law and sacred knowledge, and was revered by women throughout the Western desert.

77 LORNA WARD NAPANANGKA (1961 - ) MARRAPINTI, 2012

183 x 244 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. 201201 Private Collection, France

Lorna Ward Napanangka was born at Papunya, daughter of artist Timmy Payungka Tjapangati. She began painting at Kintore in 1996, creating works that reveal aspects of the traditional ceremonial sites.

This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Marrapinti, west of the Kiwirrkurra Community. A large group of senior women camped at this site and gathered kampurarrpa (bush raisins), which are ground to make a type of traditional damper. This site is also associated with nose piercing rituals for Pintupi women. The grid design literally represents a symbolic map of the Western Desert region and ancestral activities that were part of its creation story.

EST $28,000 - 35,000

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78 DOROTHY NAPANGARDI (c.1956 - 2013) SANDHILL COUNTRY, 2006

122 x 198 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Gallery Gondwana, NT Cat No. 10409DN Private Collection, NSW EXHIBITED And They Danced Their Way Across Country, Cooee Art, Sydney, NSW, 20th October - 10 November 2018 EST $35,000 - 45,000

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Dorothy Napangardi spent her early childhood living a nomadic life at Mina Mina near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert during the late 1950s and early 1960s. This idyllic life came to a close when her family was forcibly relocated to the government settlement at Yuendumu.

From 1997 onward, Dorothy began producing works which traced the gridlike patterns of the salt encrustations on the Mina Mina clay pans, marking a significant artistic shift in her work.

Regarded as one of the leading artists of the contemporary Aboriginal Art movement, Dorothy Napangardi created her own unique language to describe these homelands. Many of her paintings are shaped by an interlacing network of dotted lines that form both a micro and a macro study of the land, creating the homeland topography while telling a story of the ancestral tracks.

In this work she follows in the footsteps of the ancestral Karntakurlangu women as they dance their way across the country. Their travels are mimicked by the striated sand dunes that are evident to this day.

79 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE (1910 - 1996) ARLATYEY PENCIL YAM DREAMING, 1996 191 x 66 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas

PROVENANCE The Creative Native Gallery, WA Cat No. YTR EKK9851 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from The Creative Native Gallery and two photographs of the artist working EST $40,000 - 60,000

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born at Anilitye (Boundary Bore), and began painting on canvas in her late 70s. The subject of this work is Arlatyey, the Pencil Yam or Bush Potato. This is a valuable food source and the subject of important songs, dances, and ceremonies amongst Eastern Anmatyerre people. In this painting, Emily has characterised the roots of the yam during the plant’s full period of maturity. As the foliage dies off, cracks appear in the ground which trace the root system and indicate that the engorged tubers are ready to be dug up and eaten. Solid lines, stark and unadorned, trace the meandering paths of the pencil yam roots as they forge their way through the desert sands. Arguably the most important of these works is the monumental Big Yam Dreaming, 1995, which is 8 x 3 m, in the National Gallery of Victoria.

Painted entirely in white on a black ground, it has been described as the ‘perfect bridge between Aboriginal art and contemporary international art’.

Emily Kngwarreye was awarded the Australian Creative Fellowship in 1992 and continued painting prolifically until her death in 1996.

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80 NAATA NUNGURRAYI (1932 - 2021) MARRAPINTI ROCKHOLE AND SOAKAGE SITE, 2008 153 x 183 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H12188 Accompanied by three working photographs and one with the artist holding the completed artwork EST $45,000 - 65,000

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Naata Nungurrayi was about 30 years of age when she was brought with her family to Papunya in 1964. Forced to leave behind her beloved desert homelands, the memory of these places and the life she led there provided the inspiration and the subject matter for her paintings after she began working with Papunya Tula Artists in 1996.

Naata’s paintings combine the carefully composed geometric style that developed at Papunya amongst the Pintupi painting men, with a looser technique and more painterly organic style introduced by the women after the painting camps of the early and mid 1990s.

This work depicts designs associated with the rockhole and soakage water site of Marrapinti, to the west of the Pollock Hills in Western Australia. The lines depict sandhills surrounding the area, and the roundels represent rockholes where a large group of senior women camped. They are depicted in this painting as U shapes sitting in groups. The myth relating to these women tells of how they first made the nose-bones which are traditionally worn through a hole in the nose web. These nose-bones were originally worn by both men and women but are now only worn by the older generation on ceremonial occasions.

81 WALANGKURA REID NAPURRULA (c.1935 - 2004) SEVEN SISTERS DREAMING AT DALE CREEK, 2001 91.5 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Papunya Tula, NT Cat No. WR0110074 The Collection of William and Lucy Mora, Vic Deutscher & Hackett, Lot 115, Sydney, July 2010 Pat Corrigan Collection, NSW

Walangkura Reid Napurrula came into contact with people outside her remote desert clan in the 1950s when she was twenty years of age. Until that time, she had lived a semi-nomadic life with her family, as had her ancestors.

This painting depicts designs associated with the Seven Sisters Dreaming, which corresponds to the seven stars of the constellation of Taurus, also known as “Pleiades”. Legend has it that these stars were actually sisters from the Napaljarri group who were pursued by a man of the wrong kinship group, Wati Nguru, a Tjakamarra man. The women travelled over quite a distance but managed to keep ahead of him. The other “U” shapes are groups of women who have been gathering kampurarrpa (desert raisins) and grinding them into a paste to make damper which is cooked in the coals.

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Papunya Tula EXHIBITED The Corrigan Collection, SBS Studio’s, 2012 - 2021 EST $3,000 - 4,000

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82 WALANGKURA NAPANANGKA (UTA UTA TJANGALA’S WIDOW) (c.1922 - 2010) LUPUL, 2009

91 x 92 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Papunya Tula, NT Cat No. WN0902009 Pat Corrigan Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Papunya Tula EXHIBITED The Corrigan Collection, SBS Studio’s, 2012 - 2021 EST $3,500 - 4,500

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Walangkura Napanangka (Uta Uta Tjangala’s widow) was born beside a rockhole near where the Tjukurla community was later established. As a young woman, she travelled with her large family in the country between Punkilpirri near Docker River and Walukirritji rockhole on the south-western side of Lake MacDonald. When she was in her early teens, her family was met by a welfare patrol – among them, Nosepeg Tjupurrula – and were invited to travel with other Pintupi people to the Haasts Bluff settlement. She later moved to Papunya to live with her husband Uta Uta Tjangala, who was one of the original shareholders of Papunya Tula Artists. She is the daughter of Inyuwa Nampitjinpa and the sister of Pirrmangka Napanangka, who both painted for Papunya Tula Artists.

This painting depicts designs associated with the lake site of Tjukurla in Western Australia. The roundels in this work represent the rockholes at this site. The lines depict the surrounding sandhills.

According to the creation myth, a group of ancestral women gathered at this site to perform dances and sing. While at Tjukurla, the women spun hairstring to make nyimparra (hair string skirts), which are worn during ceremonies.

The women also gathered large quantities of edible fruit known as pura, or bush tomato, from the small shrub Solanum chippendalei. After the seeds have been removed, they can be stored for long periods by halving the fruit and skewering them onto a stick. Upon completion of the ceremonies, the women continued their travels north, towards the rockhole site of Illpilli and then on to a site near Nyirrpi.

83 PADDY SIMS TJAPALTJARRI (c.1925 - 2010) YANJIRLPIRI JUKURRPA (MILKY WAY DREAMING), 2005 151.5 x 76.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas

PROVENANCE Warlurkulang Artists, NT Cat No. 1787/05 Cooee Art, NSW Cat No. 2957 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Warlurkulang Artists EST $6,000 - 8,000

Paddy Sims was born south-west of Yuendumu prior to contact with Europeans. He began painting in the early 1980s when the school principal asked the senior men to paint ancestral designs on the school doors. In all, thirty doors were painted by Paddy Sims, Paddy Stewart, and three other countrymen, and these now hold pride of place in the South Australian Museum.

The site depicted is Yanjirliri, which means “star” in Warliri.There are low hills here which are stars coming down to rest on the earth, and a water soakage.

The importance of this place can not be overemphasized, as young boys are brought here to be initiated from as far as Pitjantjara country to the south, and Lajamanu to the north.

Ngalyipi (snake vine) is used to tie witi (ceremonial spears) vertically to the shins of dancing initiates.These witi are shown in straight lines, stars are two white circles, dancing sites, hills, and soakages are represented by concentric circles.

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84 EILEEN STEVENS TARITJA (c.1930 - 2008) NYAPARI, 2007

125 x 112 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas PROVENANCE Tjungu Palya, SA Cat No. TPEYS07406 Private Collection, Vic EST $3,500 - 4,500

85 KATHLEEN NGAL (1930 - ) BUSH PLUM COUNTRY, 2007

117 x 113 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Vic Cat No. 270278 Aboriginal Benefits Foundation Gala, MCA, NSW Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Lauraine Diggins Fine Art EST $5,000 - 7,000 92

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86 YANNIMA TOMMY WATSON (c.1935 - 2017) IYARKA, 2013

153 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Art, NT Cat No. TW2013104 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H19375 Private Collection, NSW EST $45,000 - 65,000

Pitjantjatjara elder Tommy Watson was born at Anamarapiti, 44 kilometres west of Irrunytju (also named Wingellina), located 12 kilometers south-west of the tri-state border where the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and South Australia meet. Though he recalled visiting Papunya in his youth, it was not until later that he himself felt compelled to lay down his stories in paint.

His debut at the 2002 Desert Mob show in Alice Springs was followed by his participation in a series of domestic group exhibitions, where his reputation gained rapid momentum. His prominence was ultimately cemented when, in 2006, he was commissioned to create a permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly, in Paris.

Grounded in his paintings are rockholes, mountain ranges, and creek beds.

In this work he has depicted an important meeting place for hunting and camping with family members. The water hole near Iyarka was a meeting place for all.

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87 CLIFFORD POSSUM TJAPALTJARRI (1932 - 2002) POSSUM DREAMING, 1996

120.5 x 190 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Commissioned by Milanka J Sullivan Artspeak Studio Gallery, Vic Cat No. CPT/Artspeak PDM 9600 Milanka J Sullivan & Frank Mosmeri Collection, Vic Private Collection, Vic Signed verso Clifford Possum Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Artspeak Studio Gallery and three photographs of the artist working EST $35,000 - 45,000

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In this painting, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri gives symbolic expression to his own personal Possum totem and Dreaming associated to his country Larumba, which is also known as Napperby Station, situated in the southwestern part of Anmatyarre country in the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory of Australia.

His Possum totem and Dreaming Ancestor is known as Umpumburra, which is Clifford’s own tribal name. He represents the Ancestral Possum through a meandering line flanked by possum paw prints. It represents the trail left in the desert sand by the Ancestral Possum’s tail as he wanders around Larumba.

The idea of wandering, or travelling, is also associated with the Possum Ancestor who travelled south to Pitjantjatjara country to find himself an appropriate wife, before returning to Larumba and establishing his family during the Dreamtime. Here also, he washed and applied body designs. The designs are commemorated in the sacred Possum song, sung by the artist in sacred Possum ceremonies. During these ceremonies, all participants sing, dance, engage in body painting, and design sacred sand paintings associated with Umpumburra and his Dreaming.

Much of this secret and sacred ritual concerns the rite of passage into manhood, and can not be revealed to the uninitiated.

88 CHARLIE TJAPANGARTI (c.1949 - ) PIRRINYA, NORTH WEST OF JUPITER WELL, 2006 182 x 138 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Red Desert Gallery, Qld Cat No. 941 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H10350 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by two working photographs and one with the artist holding the completed artwork EXHIBITED Art of the Western Desert, Harvey Galleries, NSW, 2006 EST $8,000 - 12,000

89 THOMAS TJAPALTJARRI (c.1964 - ) TINGARRI DREAMING, 2006

200 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Red Centre Art & Craft, NT Cat No. ABTT 131 RC Lawson~Menzies, Lot 165, Sydney, February 2014 Private Collection, NSW EST $4,000 - 6,000 AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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90 THOMAS TJAPALTJARRI (c.1964 - ) TINGARI, 2014

244 x 181 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. T201304 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H18191 Private Collection, NSW EST $18,000 - 25,000

91 GEORGE WARD TJUNGARRAYI (1945 - ) KAAKURATINTJA (LAKE MCDONALD), 2007 180 x 120.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Yanda Aboriginal Art, NT Cat No. 201201 Harvey Galleries, NSW Cat No. H12401 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by eight working photographs and one of the artist with the completed artwork EXHIBITED George Ward Tjungurrayi, Solo Exhibition, Harvey Galleries, March 2010 EST $8,000 - 12,000

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92 ARONE MEEKS (1957 - 2021)

Arone Meeks was a Kuku Midigi man who grew up in Yarrabah and El Arish missions in Far North Queensland.

WATERHOLE - PORTAL, 2006

Initially taught to paint by his grandfather, his talent was recognised at an early age and he studied fine art at the City Art Institute in Sydney. A founding member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, he won an Australia Council Fellowship to study at the Cité Internationale in Paris, and went on to exhibit throughout Europe, and North and South America. In 1992, he was awarded the UNICEF Ezra Jack Keats Award for International Excellence in Children’s book illustration. He then exhibited and attended monoprint workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1994, and later returned to Queensland to study with tribal elders, including those of the Lardil people of Mornington Island.

180 x 90 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas

PROVENANCE Aboriginal and Oceanic Art Gallery, Qld Private Collection, NSW EST $9,000 - 12,000

Meeks’ work drew on traditional themes arising out of his concern with the issues of Land Rights, sexuality, cultural values, and belonging to place.

He was concerned not only with representing identities of difference, but also with linking them, based on common ground. His art is remarkable for its ability to explore multiple identities in a manner that celebrates and liberates them.

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93 JUDY WATSON NAPANGARDI (c.1925 - 2016) DREAMING AT MINA MINA, 2006 123 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Gundooee Art, NT Cat No. GUN606184 Lawson~Menzies, Australian Aboriginal Art, Lot 111, Sydney, November 2007 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Gundooee Art and a photograph of the artist with the artwork EST $18,000 - 24,000

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Born on Mt. Doreen Station, north-west of Alice Springs circa 1925, Judy Watson grew up in the vast Warlpiri country that lies between the Tanami and Gibson deserts. Her traditional nomadic lifestyle came to an end, however, when the Warlpiri were forced to live in the new government settlement at Yuendumu.

Years later, following the birth of her ten children amid great struggles living under European colonisation, the influence of those early years in the land of her ancestors burst forth in her art. Her principal focus was the women’s Dreaming of the Karnta-kurlangu – a large number of ancestral women who danced across the land, creating important sites, discovering plants, foods, and medicines, as well as establishing the ceremonies that would perpetuate their generative powers.

At Mina Mina, these ancestral women danced and performed ceremonies before travelling on to Janyinki and other sites as they moved east toward Alcoota. During their ritual dancing, digging sticks rose up out of the ground and the women carried these implements with them on their long journey east, singing and dancing all the way without rest. The hairstring is anointed with red ochre and is a secret and sacred connection between the women’s ceremony and the country, which enables them to connect with the spirit of the Dreaming.

94 MINNIE PWERLE (1910 - 2006) AWELYE - ATNWENGERRP, 2000 91 x 182.5 cm, 98 x 189.5 (framed) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. AGOD/12041 Private Collection, Vic Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings with booklet EST $18,000 - 22,000

The manner in which Minnie Pwerle created her works was the result of an urgency to reconnect to the past and to keep the Dreaming a living reality.

Painting after painting depicts the body designs applied to women’s breasts and limbs for the regular ceremonial revivification of her country.

These bold linear patterns of stripes and curves evoke the movement of the women as they dance during ceremony. After smearing their bodies with animal fat, they trace these designs onto their breasts, arms and thighs singing as each woman has a turn to be ‘painted up’. Then, often by firelight, they dance in formation accompanied by ritual singing. The songs relate to the Dreamtime stories of ancestral travel as well as plants, animals, and natural forces.

Awelye-Women’s ceremony demonstrates respect for the land. In performing these ceremonies, they ensure well-being and happiness within their community.

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95 LUCY YUKENBARRI (c.1934 - 2003) MY COUNTRY, 1999

150 x 100 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 527/99 Private Collection, NSW EST $4,000 - 6,000 Lucy Yukenbarri was amongst the last generation of the desert people who moved into the mission at Balgo Hills, at the western extremity of the Tanami Desert, to have undergone full initiation and live a traditional nomadic life in the bush before encountering European colonists.

From the outset, her innovative and daring paintings were distinguished by fields of intense colour with a thick, painterly texture. Her brushwork imparted a linear appearance, yet the bands of colour were actually created by merging dots in a way that she referred to as ‘kinti kinti’ (close, close).

As they dried quickly in the intense heat, they created a chromatic density that had no time for gentle gradations or blended hues. The result is a rich immediacy of contrast and resonance.

This work depicts a central rock hole in the Great Sandy Desert. It is surrounded by sand dunes, rich in bush food, particularly Pura, a wild bush tomato. Lucy Yukenbarri was a senior law woman with an irreplaceable knowledge of the ancient places, ceremonies, and narratives.

96 ROSIE NANYUMA (c.1940 - 2004) YUENPU, 1997

89.5 x 59.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 879/97 The Dr. Peter Elliot Collection, NSW Cooee Art, NSW Cat No. 18699 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Warlayirti Artists EST $1,800 - 2,500 During her childhood, Rosie Nanyuma grew up at the old Balgo mission, spending time at Mintirr Rockhole with other local family groups. As a young woman, she worked with the children in the kindergarten. Later, she worked at Lake Stretch Station near Billiluna trapping, killing, and skinning dingo pups in exchange for food.

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In 1962, the community moved to Wirrimanu where a new mission was established. She was in her late 40s, and a custodian of women’s law and ceremony when she began painting in 1989. Over the following decade her work was exhibited widely across Australia and overseas. Her main themes were the travels of the Tingari men and women, and Wati Kutjarra, two men Dreaming.

97 EUNICE JACK NAPANANGKA (1940 - ) HAIR STRING STORY, 2004

137 x 106 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Ikuntji Art Centre, NT Cat No. IK06EJ149 Private Collection, Vic EST $4,000 - 6,000

Eunice was born in 1940 at Lupul in the Sir Frederick Ranges in Western Australia. When she was a young child, her mother carried her piggy-back from Winparrku on the Walpiri side of Lake Mackay all the way to the ration station at Haasts Bluff in central Australia.

Her father was Tutuma Tjapangarti, one of the first men to paint for Papunya Tula and, during the 1970s, she assisted her husband Gideon Tjupurrula Jack who also painted at Papunya Tula. She began painting in her own right when the Ikuntji Women’s Centre opened at Haasts Bluff in August 1992.

Her paintings are interpretations of her own country near Lake Mackay and that of her husband including Tjukurla, Tjila, Kurulto, and Lupul.

A brilliant colourist, Eunice is renowned for using layers of colour to build up a vision of bush wildflowers and grasses as well as Hairstring, Tali (sandhill), and Mungada (apple). In this Hairstring work, hundreds of varied colour strokes represent the hair being rolled on women’s thighs to make bags and clothing.

Now an elder in her late 70s, Eunice is a renowned hunter, dancer, and senior custodian of traditional law.

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98 HELEN MCCARTHY TYALMUTY (1972 - ) AWURRAPUN, 2010

119 x 186 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Agathon Gallery, NSW Private Collection, NSW EST $5,000 - 7,000

After spending most of her childhood at Daly River, Helen McCarthy went to school in the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. She became an artist while studying to become a teacher at Deakin University, from where she graduated in 1994. During the following decade, she successfully juggled her job as a teacher in remote communities and her painting practice until, in 2003, she decided to devote herself to painting full-time.

She had her first solo exhibition in Sydney in 2006 and further solo and group exhibitions quickly followed. In 2007, Helen won the People’s Choice Award at the 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and, in 2011, she was commissioned to paint the artwork used as the stage backdrop for the Oprah Winfrey show that was filmed in Australia.

Her passion to learn as much as possible about culture and country from her elders, along with her natural ability as a painter, has seen her develop an array of painting styles. She can employ intricate dotting and delicate brushwork techniques, abstract imagery, bold colour use, and intuitive inter-plays with space and form. Her art can be multilayered, complex and colourful, or it can be restrained, solemn and occasionally ominous.

Helen combines her connection to country and culture with her Western education to convey her ideas and experiences in her very accomplished and unique manner.

Amongst numerous other awards, Helen was awarded the Margaret Olley Art Award (Mosman Art Prize) and was highly commended in the 2018 Paddington Art Prize.

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99 NARRABRI NAKAMARRA (c.1950 - 2010) MY COUNTRY, 2007

122 x 137 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. NN0709155 Private Collection, Vic EST $3,000 - 5,000

Narrabri Nakamarra, was the daughter of 2008 Telstra Award winning artist Makinti Napanangka and sister-in-law of 2006 Telstra Award winner, Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri.

She was born in Haasts Bluff circa 1950 and lived there for some time before moving with her family to the Papunya community. Narrabri later moved to Kintore with her husband Hilary Tjapaltjarri, their two daughters, and five grandchildren.

She began painting by assisting Makinti with her artworks prior to Makinti’s successful eye operation in the late 1990s. She commenced painting for Papunya Tula in her own right in 1999, creating a diverse range of Dreamings, often in significantly different styles heavily influenced by those of her mother – in particular, her use of straight lines representing sand hills and her exploration of themes associated with Lupulnga, he mother’s ceremonial site. However, Narrabri’s paintings immediately prior to her passing, had developed their own distinctive style as exemplified in this work.

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100 JONATHAN BROWN KUMUNTJARA (1960 - 1997) GRANDFATHER’S COUNTRY’ - WHITE SAND DUNES NEAR YALATA, 1996 180 x 100 cm natural earth pigments on canvas

PROVENANCE Commissioned by Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. 7430 Private Collection, Tas Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and booklet from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings EST $4,000 - 6,000

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Jonathan Brown was removed from his parents at Ooldea and grew up with foster parents in Melbourne and Sydney. After more than 20 years, he returned to his family and birthplace to learn about their removal and the destruction of their country during the British atomic testing at Maralinga.

He was overcome with emotion, and translated his new-found knowledge into his art.

In paintings such as this, he depicted his homeland, later covering the work with ochre, sand, and glue, thereby imparting the impression of landscape following the seismic explosions.

102 TIMOTHY COOK (1958 - )

101 JACK WHERRA (1924 - 1979) WANDJINA, 1978

120.5 x 90 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen PROVENANCE Neil McLeod Fine Arts Studio, Vic The Dr. Peter Elliot Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Neil McLeod Fine Arts Studio and photos of artist’s grandson Lennie Jorda holding a photo of the artwork and a statutory declaration signed by Lennie Jorda EST $2,500 - 3,000 Ngarinyin artist and elder Jack Wherra, was renowned throughout the Kimberley as a tracker, before spending eighteen years in jail where he taught himself to carve boab nuts. According to one report, Jack used a three inch nail and pieces of broken glass to create these works as pocket knives were forbidden to him in the Broome Regional Prison from which he was released in early 1964.

In this dynamic painting, Jack depicts the Wandjina, the embodiment of the rain spirit and ancestor of the Wonnambal, Ngarinyin, and Worrora peoples of the North West Kimberley.This powerful fertility figure appears as if painted on the wall of a cave in the plateau region of the North Kimberley coast. The frontal aspect is unadorned other than with bands of body paint. The face has no features other than its large black eyes and a luminous white outline. The background is splattered with white ochre as if it were spat out of the mouth, creating the image as a silhouette on the brown ground.

UNTITLED, 1999

52 x 56 cm natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on canvas PROVENANCE Jilamara Arts and Crafts, NT Cat No. 386-01 Private Collection, Vic Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Jilamara Arts and Crafts EST $500 - 800 Born on Melville Island,Timothy Cook began painting in the mid 1990s. At the start of his career he was one of a number of Tiwi artists who visited the South Australian Museum in Adelaide to view the bark paintings collected by anthropologist Charles Mountford during his National Geographic expedition to Melville Island in 1954. The visiting artists were inspired to create contemporary responses, and Cook quickly became one of the most radical interpreters of these early Tiwi works.

The traditional Kulama, or yam ceremony, is a recurrent subject in Cook’s work. Its circular motif has several echoes in Tiwi culture. This ceremony is a coming-of-age ritual that occurs when the yams are harvested. It is performed in the early dry season around a circular fire-pit when a conspicuous halo appears around the full moon. Elders of both sexes sing and dance for three days, welcoming the boys into adulthood. The boys are then renamed with their ‘true’ man’s name. The moon is a potent metaphor for life and death in the Tiwi Islands.

Timothy Cook was a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIA) on six occasions prior to 2010, and selected as a finalist in numerous other national art prizes before becoming the overall winner in 2012.

He is renowned for paintings in natural earth pigment characterised by loose, gestural, spacious designs. These are composed with pure instinct and without hesitation.

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103 MARGARET BARAGURRA (c.1935 - ) KAMPAGEE, 2004

135 x 83 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas PROVENANCE Short St Gallery, WA Cat No. 2996 Private Collection, USA EST $3,000 - 4,000

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Margaret Baragurra was born in Kalpirti in the Great Sandy Desert and travelled with her family in the 1970s to the coastal town of Bidyadanga (then the La Grange Mission) where she now lives. Her people, the Yulparija, walked out of their traditional country when their existence was threatened by severe drought. As a result, she combines the traditional imagery of the Great Sandy Desert with the vibrant colours of the saltwater landscape she now inhabits.

Her entire family lived at Kalpirti, and her ancestors are buried there. She recalls growing up eating the bush foods (mayi) including warlji (bush tomato), and making miningali (damper). There are lots of junbi (tall grasses) in the tali (sand dunes) where they used to collect binya (a white fruit that grows on the trees). All of these bush foods are referred to in this work.

FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM

ON SHOW AT THE

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA, CANBERRA 17 December 2021 — 1 May 2022 nma.gov.au/ancient-greeks

PRESENTING PARTNERS

MAJOR PARTNERS

COMMUNITY PARTNER

The presentation of this exhibition is a collaboration between the British Museum, Western Australian Museum, National Museum of Australia, and Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. (image) Fragment of a sarcophagus (detail) Klazomenai (modern Urla),AUSTRALIAN Turkey, about 525–515 BCE. © Trustees the British Museum, 2021. | 107 INDIGENOUS FINEofART AUCTION

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BILLY MISSI’N WAKAIN THAMAI

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PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

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oceanicartsociety.org.au The aim of the Oceanic Art Society is to further the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art.

The focus is on the traditional art, including contemporary art, of the indigenous peoples of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and Australasia.

The Oceanic Art Society holds regular presentations and streamed seminars throughout the year, publishes a quarterly journal, organises two- or three-day Forums and holds the Sydney Oceanic Art Fair each year.

The Society welcomes anyone with an interest in Oceanic art.

Our membership is international and includes enthusiasts, beginners, collectors, academics, artists, students, art dealers and museum professionals.

For more information and how to become a member please visit our website.

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4 5 6 7 8 *Not including buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). bids are made in Australian dollars.

Telephone bids must be received a minimum of twenty-four hours prior to auction. All telephone bids received will be confirmed by phone or email. In the event that confirmation is not received, please resubmit or contact our office.

Please refer to the Buyers Terms & Conditions of Auction found at www.cooeeart.com.au/buying-from-acooee-art-auctions for information regarding sales.

By completing this form, I authorise COOEE ART to contact me by telephone on the contact number(s) nominated. I understand it is my responsibility to enquire whether any Sale-Room Notices relate to any lot on which I intend to bid. I also understand that should my bid(s) be successful, a buyer’s premium of 25% (inclusive of GST), will be added to the final hammer price.

I accept that COOEE ART provides this complimentary service as a courtesy to its clients, that there are inherent risks to telephone bidding, and I will not hold COOEE ART responsible for any error.

A member of the Cooee Art team will contact you a few minutes before your indicated desired lots.The Cover Bid Price will be used should a member of staff not be able to reach you.

Should your final bid be successful, you will be obliged to pay the final bid price plus buyer’s premium of 25% (incl of GST) of the final bid amount.

INTERNAL USE ONLY RECEIVED BY DATE TIME BIDDER NO.

AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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ABSENTEE BID FORM SALE NO.: 10 AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

Billing adress (PO Box insufficient)

8 MARCH 2022, 7:00PM AESD LOTS 1 - 103 17 THURLOW STREET REDFERN NSW 2016

Address

City

State

Postcode

Country

Telephone/Mobile

Email

Signature (required)

LOT NO.

Date

ARTIST/TITLE

MAXIMUM BID*

1

please email or post this completed form to: COOEE ART 17 THURLOW STREET REDFERN NSW 2016

2 3

tel: +61 (02) 9300 9533 auctions@cooeeart.com.au

4 5 6 7 8 *Not including buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). bids are made in Australian dollars.

Absentee bids must be received by 2pm the pay of the auction. All absentee bids received will be confirmed by phone or email. In the event that confirmation is not received, please resubmit or contact our office.

Please refer to the Buyers Terms & Conditions of Auction found at www.cooeeart.com.au/buying-from-acooee-art-auctions for information regarding sales.

By completing this form, absentee bidders request and authorise COOEE ART to place the following bids acting as agent on their behalf up to and including the maximum bid specified. Lots will be bought at the lowest possible bid authorised by the bidder in absentia.

I understand it is my responsibility to enquire whether any Sale-Room Notices relate to any lot on which I intend to bid. I also understand that should my bid(s) be successful, a buyer’s premium of 25% (inclusive of GST), will be added to the final hammer price.

COOEE ART provides this complimentary service as a courtesy to clients and does not accept liability for errors and omissions in the execution of absentee bids. Should your bid be successful, you will be obliged to pay the final bid price plus buyer’s premium of 25% (incl of GST) of the final bid price.

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COOEE ART

INTERNAL USE ONLY RECEIVED BY DATE TIME BIDDER NO.

AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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ART YOU WILL LOVE FROM PEOPLE YOU CAN TRUST Established 1999 250+ Artist Members 50+ Gallery & Art Centre Members 50% Indigenous Board Representation Leader in Ethical Standards

Scan for more information:

www.aboriginalart.org.au 118 |

COOEE ART

Athena Nangala Granites, Image Courtesy of Warlukurlangu Artists

DETAIL IMAGE 67 MALALUBA GUMANA (1955 - ) DHATAM - LARRAKITJ (DETAIL), 2013 176 x 14 x 14 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood

PROVENANCE Buku–Larrnggay Mulka, NT Cat No. 4301K Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Buku–Larrnggay Mulkaking EST $3,000 - 5,000 AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION

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COOE E ART

auctions consultancy galleries

COOEE ART REDFERN 17 Thurlow Street | Redfern NSW 2016 COOEE ART BONDI BEACH 31 Lamrock Avenue | Bondi Beach NSW 2026 +61 (02) 9300 9533 auctions@cooeeart.com.au www.cooeeart.com.au @cooeeart # #cooeeart 120 |

COOEE ART