Timmy Payungka Tjapangarti

Painted at Papunya, mid-1971

Mossgreen Auctions, Fine Early Aboriginal & Oceanic Art, August 29, 2010, lot 34

Private Collection

Bardon, G. and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Painting Movement, Melbourne, 2004, pg. 52 and pg. 123 

Tall, handsome and feisty, Timmy Payungka could never settle down. This was perhaps due to his life-long ambivalence about leaving his county. After walking into Haasts Bluff settlement in the 1940s with his family, he spent many subsequent years moving between his remote homelands and the world of white people.¹ In a memorable photograph taken by the patrol officer Jeremy Long, Timmy is seen carrying a large bag of flour on his head, as he is about to walk back to his father's country, west of Lake Mackay (Wilkinkarra).² According to Long, he re-appeared two years later, again at Haasts Bluff, with his wife and children.

Because of his peripatetic lifestyle, Timmy resisted European attempts to label him. He was happy to be called a Pintupi person when in Papunya, but in his own country, he wanted to be known as a Karntiwangkatjarra man. On other occasions, he identified as Kukatja, and probably aligned himself with other groups when it suited him.³ This exceptional individualism seemed to have found its way into his painting.

As one of the first Papunya Tula artists, Timmy employed a wide variety of approaches in representing his country and its ancestorial traditions. Indeed, he had no hesitation in using wild figurative imagery in one work and calm abstractions in another. Possum Dreaming for Children (1972) for example, depicts a giant yellow lizard, hovering menacingly over two dancing figures, painted vivid red. In complete contrast, his Sandhill Country West of Wilkinkarra (1972) provides an austere pictorial plane devoid of any obvious figurative elements. With its simple construction using dots only and a few basic colours, this particular work is possibly the first to employ the kind of minimalist approach that now dominates much of the market for Aboriginal art.

Timmy's Men's Travelling Dreaming, depicted here, is a relatively modest work, but it is nonetheless highly significant in historical and cultural terms. It was painted in 1971 and can therefore be counted among the very first paintings produced by the early Papunya Tula group. In a beautifully composed arrangement, Timmy placed ceremonial men at the centre of this work, represented in u-shapes. Four sacred sites are located in each corner, linked by songlines.         

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 Johnson, Vivien. 2008. Timmy Payungka Tjapangati, In Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists. IAD Press.

² Photograph taken by Jeremy Long, 14th July, 1958. Published in the exhibition catalogue, Colliding Worlds, First Contact in the Western Desert 1932-1984. Ed, Batty, Philip 2006. Museum Victoria.

³ Kimber, Dick. 2012. Timmy Payungka Tjapangati, in Tjukurrtjanu, Origins of Western Desert Art, Melbourne, NGV