Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi circa 1914-1987 CHILDREN'S STORY

Painted at Papunya in 1972
Consignment 14, painting number 36 to the Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs
Private collection
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 25 July 2005, lot 79
Private collection

Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press, 2004, p.486 for an annotated line drawing of the painting by Geoffrey Bardon

 

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Cf. See Bardon's chapter on and illustrations of paintings of Children's Dreamings by Timmy Payungka Tjapangarti, Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula and others in Bardon and Bardon 2004, pp. 474-501.

For a discussion of the development of the artist's painting style see F. Myers, 'Graceful Transfigurations of Person, Place and Story: The stylistic evolution of Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi' in R. Benjamin,  and A.C. Weislogel (eds.), Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya, New York: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 2009, pp. 50-63.

In the early days of the Papunya painting movement artists faced a number of challenges and dilemmas in terms of the type of imagery they were to depict in the public domain; in terms of sacred and secret imagery, artists held a range of views on how and what they would paint. The debate was exacerbated by the fact that the various tribal groups at Papunya also held differing views, partly as a consequence of the length of their experience of European culture. From June 1971, Geoffrey Bardon requested from a number of the senior artists at Papunya, paintings that were specifically intended to assist him in teaching the children at the school. Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi, Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, Billy Stockman, Tim Leura and Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri and a number of other artists recognised the need to produce pictures devoid of the sacred/secret images for the purpose. Bardon described these paintings for the children as exhibiting 'an extraordinary clarity and immediacy, for the painters had to discipline themselves to concentrate on the essentials of the story to be told ... [and this] was one of the outstanding achievements of the Papunya painters during [his] stay' (Bardon and Bardon 2004:64). Another series of children's paintings was requested from January 1972, partly to diffuse growing tensions among some of the senior men as the issue of secret imagery again surfaced.

The painting depicts a young initiate sitting on the ceremonial ground surrounded by the linked lines of the ritual sand design. The prominent black shapes represent the other ground drawings that go to make up the entire ceremonial space, which is circumscribed by a black line outlined in white dots. The men who lead the ceremonies are depicted as black U-shapes at the upper left together with the sticks they rub together at right angles to make fire. Shorty Lungkata very rarely employed human figures in his paintings, but as Bardon states (ibid p.486),  this is a major exception.

This work is sold with a photocopy of Geoffrey Bardon's annotated line drawing of the painting