Old Walter Tjampijinpa

Painted at Papunya, 1971 (Painting 89 consignment 5 to the Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs)

Sotheby's, Melbourne, Aboriginal Art, July 31, 2006, lot 74

Private Collection

Bardon, G. and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Painting Movement, Melbourne, 2004, p. 464 (illustration of the original field notes and diagram by Geoffrey Bardon) 

Old Walter Tjampitjinpa was a man of few words. According to Geoffrey Bardon, "he had no English besides yes and no."¹ Yet, he played a seminal role in the foundation of the Western Desert Art Movement. He was one of the original Papunya Tula artists and his work was included in the first consignment of Papunya paintings offered for sale in Alice Springs.² As a senior custodian, with deep ritual knowledge, he also authorised the painting of the now famous Papunya School Mural in 1971.

Among the first of the Pintupi to leave his homelands, Walter walked into the Lutheran Mission of Hermannsburg with some thirty other men in the early 1920s.³ However, since it was mission policy to keep the Pintupi away from an already over-burdened settlement, Walter's group was refused food and encouraged to return to their country.⁴ To prevent others walking into Hermannsburg, the missionaries established a ration depot at Haasts Bluff, west of the mission.⁵ By the late 1940s, Haasts Bluff was well established, and it was here that Walter and many other future artists eventually found a home. In 1960, they were moved to the new settlement of Papunya, including Walter.

Despite the upheavals Walter experienced throughout his early life, he retained an extensive knowledge of his ancestorial dreaming sites criss-crossing the Western Desert. This included Kalipinya, a primary water dreaming site for which he shared ritual responsibilities with Johnny Warangkula Tjuparula. He also had significant responsibilities for Ilpilli, due west of Papunya. Like other artist, Walter used the traditions of his ancestors as a source for what would become one of the most important developments in the history of Australian art.

The painting, 'Bush Tucker Story' depicted here, incorporates graphic imagery that Walter did not usually employ. As a major custodian of water-dreaming sites, a great number of his art works were concerned solely with water-dreaming iconography. However, in this important work, we see a departure from this preoccupation. According to notes taken by Bardon, the complex sinuous lines in this work have multi-layered meanings. They simultaneously represent undulating sandhill country along with water or snake motifs. The bush tucker in the title refers to wild potato dreaming.            

Dr. Philip Batty

Philip Batty lived at Papunya between 1977 and 1979, befriending many local artists. He co-founded the first Aboriginal broadcasting services in Australia in 1980 (CAAMA) and was appointed Director of the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute (Tandanya) in 1991. He was Senior Curator of the Central Australian Indigenous collection at Melbourne Museum up to 2018. He has a PhD in anthropology.       

References:

¹ Bardon, Geoffrey, Bardon, James 2018. A Place Made After the Story. Melbourne University Press. Page 74.

² See Perkins, Hetti, Fink Hannah 2000. Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of NSW.

³ Johnson, Vivien 2008. Old Walter Tjampitjinpa, in Lives of the Papunya Artists, Alice Springs, IAD Press.

⁴ Under Pastor F.W. Albrecht, the Hermannsburg Mission had a policy of not providing food to able body men who came into the mission from the west. They were expected to live off the land.

⁵ See Hermannsburg : a vision and a mission / contributing authors: M. Lohe, F.W Albrecht and L.H. Leske. Adelaide : Lutheran Publishing House, 1977. 

Cf. For illustrations of other works from the same period by the artist, see Maughan, J. and J. Zimmer (eds.), Dot and Circle: A Retrospective Survey of the Aboriginal Acrylic paintings of Central Australia, Melbourne, 1986, p.66; Mellor, D. ar (eds.), Twenty-Five Years and Beyond: Papunya Tula Painting, Adelaide, 1999, p. 27; Perkins, H. and H. Fink (eds), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Sydney, 2000, p. 17; and Bardon, G., Papunya Tula: Art of the Western Desert, Melbourne, 1991, p. 49