Auction May 29 2018 Catalouge

AUCTION Aboriginal & Oceanic Works of Art Tuesday 29th May 2018

AUCTION Aboriginal & Oceanic Works of Art Tuesday 29th May 2018 6PM Auction Location: Cooee Art 326 Oxford St. Paddington, NSW

Gala Auction Launch Thursday 24th May 6 - 8 pm Viewing Times: Friday 25th - Monday 28th 10am - 6pm Tuesday 29th 10am - 2pm

ADRIAN NEWSTEAD OAM Founding Director - Senior Specialist Adrian Newstead OAM established Cooee Art in 1981 and has organised and curated more than 400 exhibitions of Indigenous art since that time. A former President of the Indigenous Art Trade Association and Director of Aboriginal Tourism Australia he became the Head of Aboriginal Art for Lawson~Menzies in 2003, and Managing Director of Menzies Art Brands until 2008. Adrian is an Aboriginal art consultant, dealer, author and art commentator, based in Bondi, NSW. He has more that 35 years experience working with Aboriginal and Australian Contemporary art.

MIRRI LEVEN Director - Specialist Having gained degrees in International Development and Fine Arts, and a Masters in Art Administration from the University of NSW College of Fine Art Mirri undertook fieldwork in the Solomon Islands and India whilst acting as the international photo editor for a London based travel magazine.

She joined Cooee Art in 2007 and was appointed the Gallery Manager in 2010. In 2013, she left Australia to take up a role as director of a contemporary art gallery in London. Mirri has been a director of Cooee Art since 2015. She plans its exhibition program and project development, and is a founder of its auction arm, the Cooee Art MarketPlace. She has been a member of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia board since 2017.

KATHLEEN ROBERTS Auction & Gallery Administrator Kathleen Roberts has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in History, Politics & International Relations from Edith Cowan University W.A., and a Masters in Museum & Heritage Studies from the University of Sydney. She is a Juris Doctor candidate at the Australian National University. Pursuing her interest in the field of art and cultural property law she has attended seminars at The World Intellectual Property Organisation, UNESCO and UniversitÊ de Genève. Kathleen is a former administrator for Aboriginal & Oceanic Art at a prominent Sydney auction house, an active member of The Art Gallery Society of NSW, and joined Cooee Art in March 2017.

Introduction We are delighted to present you with the latest Cooee Art MarketPlace Aboriginal and Oceanic art offering.

It features 111 works selected from over 50 private collections in Australia and overseas worth a total of $1.4 million. Included are 5 works that will be sold to raise money for the Purple House dialysis clinic in Ernabella, SA. Highlights include an early Papunya board by Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa (Est. $15,000-20,000); a striking black and white line Yam Dreaming by Emily Kngwarreye (Est. $50,000-70,000); a major colour-field work by Christine Yukenbarri (Est. $24,000-28,000); West Australian Daniel Walbidi’s masterwork Tali and Warla (Est. $55,000-75,000); a rare fighting scene created in 1880 by colonial artist Tommy McRae (Est. $40,000-50,000); Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Larumba, Honey Ant (Est. $35,000-45,000); and Fish and Storm Clouds, as seen in the Bahmah Forest, Lin Onus’s spiritual homeland (Est. $380,000-480,000).

CooeeArt MarketPlace held its first stand-alone Aboriginal and Oceanic art auction in November 2017.

The highlight was the sale of the Emily Kngwarreye’s Earth’s Creation I for $2.1 million. Its sale was greeted by ecstatic applause and a wave of mild hysteria throughout crowded room, which included many who attended solely to witness the occasion. The sale achieved a success rate of 87% and 72% by value and paintings by 19 individual artists set records or were introduced to the secondary market for the first time.

We believe the key difference between the MarketPlace and other auction models is the level of cultural knowledge engendered by our highly trained and knowledgeable staff. Cooee Art is Australia’s oldest exhibiting Indigenous fine art gallery. Our passion and commitment are entirely focused on the Indigenous art of Australia and Oceania.

Our specialist resources have taken decades to build and are available free of charge to our clients - both sellers and potential buyers. After 40 years promoting and exhibiting Aboriginal art, attracting and educating new collectors is our priority. If the Aboriginal art industry is going to continue to grow and prosper and provide opportunities for Aboriginal artists, we need to find new collectors, young and old, who get excited about it. And it is definitely worth getting excited about. It’s the most diverse, attractive and culturally important art being produced in Australia today.

LOT #1 Sally (Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda) Gabori (1924-2015) My Father’s Country, 2006 135 x 92 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian Linen $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Mornington Island Arts and Crafts, Qld, Cat No. 1555-L-SG-0906 Alcaston Gallery, Vic Cat No. AK13142 Eva Breuer Art Dealer, NSW Private Collection, NSW Bonhams, Aboriginal and International Fine Art, Nov 2011 Private Collection, NSW Sally Gabori’s paintingss are essentially concerned with meaningful sites, known through the artist’s intimate association during a lifetime spent on Bentink 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 Bentink Island’.* * Djon Mundine, The Road to Bentink Island: Sally Gabori, in The Corrigan Collection of Paintingss by Sally Gabori, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2015

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LOT #2 Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910 - 1996) Anooralya Yam Awelye, 1994 90 x 70 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by Rodney Gooch for Utopia Art, NT Cat No. EK21-893MBA Private Collection, NSW This paintings highlights the varied and changing hues in the life cycle of the Anooralya Yam and other food plants found near Alalgura on Utopia Station, west of Delmore Downs. From an aerial perspective, sporadic clustered growth appears after summer rain. Water slowly flows along the broad shallow watercourse and replenishes the soakage at Alalgura. The flourish of growth that follows is exceptional and rapid.

Reflected in this work is the Anooralya Yam, the most important plant in Emily’s custodianship. This hardy and fertile plant provides both a tuber vegetable and a seed bearing flower called Kame (Emily’s tribal name). Cracks in the earth’s surface indicate its presence underground.

Ceremony (Awelye) reinforces through narrative, the significance of this knowledge, in particular, it teaches survival, basic social codes and obligations.

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LOT #3 Nyumitja Laidlaw (c.1938 - ) Minyma Tjurtaka Wiltja Kulyurula, 2006 150 x 102 cm synthetic polymer paint on cavnas $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Kayili Arts SA Cat No. NL-002 Art Mob, Tas Cat No. AM3977/06 Private Collection SA Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, Sydney, Oct 2008 Tineriba Fine Art, SA Private Collection SA Nyumitja Laidlaw was born c.1938 at Nyumun, located in the Great Victoria Desert of WA. She first saw Warburton Mission when she was about 16 but lived out bush throughout the mission years. Nyumitja primarily paints about the Kungkarrangkalpa (Seven Sisters Story); her birthplace and country are all associated with this Dreaming.

The Kungkarrangkalpa were running away from Wati Nyirru who was pursuing them in their travels. In this painting the women have set up a camp at Kulyuru and their shelters (wiltja) have been depicted in the centre of the canvas.

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LOT #4 Patsy Marfurra (1942 - ) Durrmu, 2007 110 x 110 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $3,000 - 4,000 PROVENANCE Durrmu Arts, Peppimenarti, NT Cat No. PM300807 Tjala Aboriginal Art, NSW Cat No. TAA1206 Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Private Collection NSW Patsy moved to Peppimenarti when in her late 30s. There she learnt to weave dilly bags and mats (Syaw) from her grandmother and other female elders. Patsy was in her 50s when, in 2001, the Peppimenarti artists began paintings and became known for canvases which reference the weave of dilly bags and fish nets. These are traditionally made with the pinbin, or bush vine, that grows near the river. The syaw is used to catch fish, prawn and other edible living creatures in the creeks and rivers.

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LOT #5 Minnie Pwerle (1922 - 2006) Awelye Women’s Ceremony, 2003 95 x 125 cm synthetic polymer on canvas $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Created during workshop at Fireworks Gallery, Qld, Cat No. FW7325 Private Collection, Qld The bold linear patterns of stripes and curves throughout Minnie’s paintingss depict the women’s ceremonial body paint design.

After smearing their bodies with animal fat, the women trace these designs onto their breasts, arms and thighs singing as each woman has a turn to be ‘painted up’.

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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LOT #6 Billy Joongoorra Thomas (c.1920 - 2012) Untitled (Waarla), 2005 45 x 60 cm natural earth pigments on canvas $2,200 - 2,800 PROVENANCE Red Rock Art, WA Cat No. 0501/KP1178 Thornquest Gallery, Qld Cat No. TG/99 Tineriba Art Gallery, SA Private Collection SA Billy Thomas began paintings on canvas in 1995 after he approached Waringarri Arts in Kununurra to supply him with paintings materials. Prior to that, he did not belong to any community of artists. He knew his country intimately and never ceased his ceremonial immersion and involvement within it. Right up until his final years, he continued to spend long periods ‘out bush’ before returning to Billiluna or Kununurra to paint. He was revered as a senior lawman and healer, custodian of secret initiation rites and ceremonial songlines.

Invariably his works are about ceremony; the formations of people in ritual, the body paintings designs and the ground patterns, associated with various ceremonies. Waarla is a huge mudflat in the Great Sandy Desert that becomes a vast lake after rain. It is an historic meeting place where diverse desert rites are maintained and taught to young initiates.

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LOT #7 Queenie McKenzie (1930 - 1998) Hills of Old Texas, 1994 61 x 81 cm natural earth pigments on canvas $4,000 - 5,000 PROVENANCE Warmun Traditional Artists, WA Cat No. QM08/911 Kimberley Art, Vic Private Collection, Vic Queenie McKenzie, was born on old Texas Downs on the Ord River in the rugged East Kimberley. She lived there all her life whist working as a cook in the stock and droving camps. In the early 1970s, the ‘Texas Downs mob’ all moved to the Warmun Community at Turkey Creek, which was located on an adjacent property. It was a landscape that she knew intimately: ‘Every rock, every hill, every water, I know that place backwards and forwards, up and down, inside out. It’s my country and I got names for every place.’* It was this singularly close relationship with her country, that prompted Queenie to take up painting toward the end of a full and energetic life. - Written in the Land - The Life of Queenie McKenzie, Melbourne Books, 2008

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Image courtesy of Greg Weight

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LOT #8 Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910 - 1996) Anooralya Awelye, 1992 90 x 120 cm synthetic polymer paint on cavnas $20,000 - 25,000 PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, NT Cat No. 92I086 Gallery Gondwana, NT Private Collection, NSW The density and richness of colour in this work represents an abundance of wild flowers after winter rain. Emily’s reaction to the fertile energy that launches such rapid growth inspired her to use charcoal, yellow oxide, deep pink and a range of other colours to represent the ripening fruit and flowers as they reach maturity.

The painting is an aerial perspective as Emily perceived her country in the spring of 1992. From late 1991 onwards Emily explored a range of techniques having largely abandoned the fine dotting and submerged linear tracing which characterised her earlier works. She began using larger brushes to create broader circular dabs of paint which often involved ‘double dipping’ the brush in a second colour before applying the paint to the canvas. This technique enabled her to work vigorously while making delicate flower-like impressions as are seen in this work of the period.

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Image courtesy of Greg Weight

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LOT #9 Rammey Ramsey (1935 - ) Warlawoon Country, 2007 122 x 135 cm natural earth pigments and acrylic on canvas $9,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, WA, Cat No. RR2 2007-90/JA Private Collection Vic Joel, Fine Art, Melbourne, 2016, Vic Private Collection Vic Ramsey is a senior Gija lawman who, like his contemporary Paddy Bedford, began painting relatively late in life for Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts Corporation. This work reflects his country at Elgee Cliffs, North West of Halls Creek, also known as Warlawoon Country. It references roads, stockyards, waterholes and vast gorge country.

According to Ramsey ‘When the strong wind comes blowing from the east it throws dust everywhere. It is a place for the rainbow snake, the dangerous one. In early days if strange people went there the people had to perform a welcoming ceremony, putting water from the country on them (the strangers). Lots of people would come to dance: Joonba style. My parents lived there.’

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LOT #10 Freddie Timms (1946 - 2017) Kilarney, 2008 122 x 135 cm natural earth pigments and acrylic on canvas $10,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Jirrawun Arts, WA FT2008-07-302 Raft Artspace, NT Deutscher and Hackett, Important Aboriginal + Oceanic Art, 2014 Private Collection Vic In a career that spanned more than 20 years, Freddie Timms became known for aerial map-like visions of country that are less concerned with ancestral associations as with tracing the responses and refuges of the Gidja people as they encountered the ruthlessness and brutality of colonisation.

His was a unique Gidja perspective on the history of white interaction with his people. It is hard to think of another who expressed more poignantly through their art the sense of longing and the abiding loss that comes from the separation from the land that embodies one’s spiritual home.

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LOT #11 Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa (1920 - 1989) Goanna Dreaming, 1973 79 x 61 cm (82 x 62 cm frame) synthetic polymer paint on composition board $15,000 - 20,000 PROVENANCE Purchased directly from the artist at Papunya in 1972 Private Collection, NT Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, June 1998 Private Collection, NSW Joel Fine Art, June 2008 Private Collection, SA ILLUSTRATED Songlines and Dreamings, Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Painting, Patrick Corbally-Stourton, Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, London,1996, pp.88-89, pl.86 Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa was an artist of the highest importance in the development of Western Desert art. During the early 1970s he created ‘some of the most powerful and emblematic paintings from the Central Desert’ *. The finest examples are held in major collections throughout Australia and overseas, and these remain his greatest and most enduring legacy.

In this work of Anmatjerre Arrente heraldry, symmetrical motifs and radiating, sinuous lines represent water courses and the journey of goanna ancestors as well as ‘sit down places’ where men are seated during ceremony. The artist has used traditional earth colours to depict the sites and journeys of ancestral beings and the enactment of the ceremony pertaining to them. * Kean, John. 1990. Obituary. Art & Australia 27(4).

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LOT #12 Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri (1927 - 2015) Yala - Wild Potato Dreaming, 1972 - 1973 61 x 41 cm (69 x 48 cm frame) powder pigment on composition board $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Purchased directly from the artist at Papunya in 1972 Private Collection, NT Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, June 1998 Private Collection SA ILLUSTRATED Songlines and Dreamings II, Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Painting, Patrick Corbally-Stourton, Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, London,1996, p.25 illustrated.

Anmatjerre artist Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri was one of the founders of the contemporary desert art movement. He was an energetic campaigner during the establishment phase of the out-station movement, and one of the first to leave the Papunya settlement and move west to live on his tribal lands at a Illili, West of Papunya. Here, he continued painting his Dreamings and instructed younger artists on the ancient knowledge, in particular the Budgerigar, Water, Snake and Wild Potato Dreamings of his country.

Billy Stockman was one of the main protagonists in the creation of the Honey Ant Mural that initiated the Western Desert Art Movement. He had a way of focusing on simple, self-contained vignettes rendered with a symmetry and decorative quality. They often contained stylised, naturalistic plants and animals as in this very early work.

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LOT #13 Uta Uta Tjangala (c.1920 - 1990) Yarpanangu Kutaija Man, 1975 61 x 45 cm (65 x 50 frame) synthetic polymer paint on artist board $3,500 - 4,500 PROVENANCE Purchased directly from the artist at Papunya, NT Sotheby’s, Aboriginal and Oceanic Art, Nov 2005 Private Collection, S.A. Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, June 2011 Private Collection, S.A The Story is of a place called Kutijinya, where Two Men are shown lying with their backs to the fire between them. They are important Men as shown by the large shapes and strong forms. Between the men and all around them are Kutiji (bean seeds).

These seeds are used as food and also for decoration.

‘The camps in centre. Body paint on sides. The camps are in caves.’ - Written on the back of the artwork cf. For work with strikingly similar format and design see Two Men Dreaming, Nangara: the Australian Aboriginal Art Exhibition from the Ebes collection, Melbourne: The Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, 1996, vol 1, p.41, cat. no.22; vol 2, cat. no.22 (illus.)

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LOT# 14 Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri (1926 - 1998) Pungkulungka and Wife, c.1981 35 x 30 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas board $1,500 - 2,500 PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, NT Aboriginal and Pacific Art Gallery, NSW Cat No. 634-25 Private Collection, Vic “Pungkulungka with his wife on the land west of Ulumburru. The killing boomerang are his, and the coolamons are his wife’s” Written on the back of the work

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LOT #15 Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula (c1932 - 2001) Water Dreaming - Kalipinpa, 1982 97 x 62 cm synthetic polymer paint on board $7,000 - 9,000 PROVENANCE Painted at Kintore, NT Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. JW821033 Private Collection, NSW This painting is sold with a Papunya Tula Artists certificate.

Warangkula was amongst the most inventive of the early Papunya artists. His ‘calligraphic line and smearing brushwork’ *, gave a relative solidity to the features of the land, tracing the movements of a journey and picking up on the rhythmic recall of a mythic narrative. Bands of hatching or parallel lines provided visual texture, often interspersed with animal tracks or symbolic figures woven into tightly synchronised compositions that still resound with freshness and surprising spontaneity. Choosing to keep within the hues of traditional earth based ochres, he achieved in his early paintings a startlingly powerful statement of the earth, his country and the life within it. * Geoff Bardon in Isaacs, J. 2001. Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula c.1925-2001. Art in Australia 31(1).

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LOT #16 Tommy Jagamara Kuna Puta, 1976 76 x 56 cm (90 x 68 cm frame) synthetic polymer paint on canvas board $2,000 - 3,000 PROVENANCE Purchased directly from the artist by Australian historian Dick Kimber in 1976.

Catalogued by Papunya Tula, NT (Papunya Cat No: 761079) Mossgreen Auctions, Fine Early Aboriginal and Oceanic Art, 2010 Private Collection, NSW The artist has depicted Minma an area of claypans near Lake MacDonald in the far reaches of the Western Desert beyond Kiwirrkurra. Here the women gather for corroboree wearing hair string and bean seed bands, necklaces and other ceremonial regalia. These are represented by the arc shapes in the painting. The red and yellow dots represent bush tucker – mainly of the Solanum family which are called Lirda in the local Pintupi language.

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LOT #17 Jacky Kelly Kywolong (c1903 - c1985) Female Mimih Spirit, C.1984 83 x 24 x 13 cm natural earth pigments, natural fibers, bush string and bush resin on carved cork wood $2,500 - 3,5000 PROVENANCE Mimi Art’s and Crafts, NT Balang Crafts, Katherine, NT The Adrian Newstead Collection, NSW

LOT #18 Jacky Kelly Kywolong (c1903 - c1985) Male Mimih Spirit, c.1984 113 x 19 x 26 cm natural earth pigments, natural fibers, bush string and bush resin on carved cork wood $3,000 - 5,000 PROVENANCE Mimi Art’s and Crafts, NT Balang Crafts, Katherine, NT The Adrian Newstead Collection, NSW

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Jack Kywallong Kelly (Bulline) was a Rembarrnga elder living at Jarruluk (Beswick) in the Northern Territory in 1986 when he made these two sculptures. Kelly along with other Rembarrnga people had been relocated by the government from Manningrida to Beswick in 1960s. In the 1980s, Rembarrnga Art underwent a renaissance through the production of art and sculpture as well as story telling of historical significance from important cultural custodians including Paddy Fordham Wainburranga, Joli Lywonga, Jacky Larryngi and Jacky Kywallong.

LOT #17

LOT #18

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LOT #19 Cruso Guningbal (1922 --1984) Mimi Spirit, c.1980 72.5 x 5 x 5 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood $3,000 - 5,000 PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts and Culture, NT Private Collection, Qld Guningbal was a great innovator and a profound influence on other Kuninjku artists. In the 1960s he introduced sculpted figures of mimih for use in ceremonies for what is believed to have been the first time. This innovation on traditional practice was separate from the dictates of the art market or the public domain. The first three-dimensional mimih figures were modest in scale, but Guningbal eventually increased the size of the sculptures to a human scale and beyond.

Following his death in 1984, he passed on the exclusive right to depict Mimih’s in three-dimensional form to his nephew Crusoe Gurdal. Within a decade of their inception however, many different members of the Kuninjku clan followed suit.

Cf. A group of six mimih figures from 1979 in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia are illustrated in Caruana, W., Australian Aboriginal Art: A Souvenir Book of Aboriginal Art in the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1989, p. 7

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LOT #21 Gloria Fletcher Thancoupie, (1937 - 2011) Fish ‘Egg’ , c.1989 15 x 10 x 12 cm Stoneware high fire cobalt and iron oxide $3,000 - 4,000

LOT #20 Gloria Fletcher Thancoupie, (1937 - 2011) Pot, c.1989 17 x 15 x 15 cm Stoneware high fire cobalt and iron oxide $4,000 - 5,000 PROVENANCE Hogarth Gallery, NSW Private Collection, Qld Private Collection, NSW

Gloria Fletcher, Thancoupie, is widely credited as having been one of the founders of Australia’s Indigenous ceramic art movement.

Born in Weipa, FNQ, of Thaynakwith ancestry, she developed a unique style of hand-built ceramics in forms that were drawn from nature. Working initially with teacher Shiga Shigeo, her art practice evolved as she met and mix with people in the wider artistic world. These friendships influenced her artistic practice and created opportunities for her to exhibit with the best artists, sculptors and craft-makers as a contemporary artist, rather than an Aboriginal Australian artist. In 1983 she visited Sao Paulo as Australia’s Cultural Commissioner to the 17th Biennale and her works subsequently toured Brazil and Mexico and later were included in the Portsmouth Festival in the UK. The primary focus throughout Thancoupie’s distinguished career was on the ‘object as art’. Thancoupie produced pots of great beauty and, in the process, became regarded as one of Australia’s great artists. Her creative influence can be compared to that of the Native American Pueblo artist Maria Martinez, in that it has provided the impetus for the development of the Indigenous ceramic art movement in this country. Yet her prime motivation was steadfastly a personal one serving only to strengthen her intimate relationship with her own Thaynakwith culture.

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LOT #22 Rover Joolama Thomas (1926 - 1998) Krill Krill (Gurrir Gurrir) Ceremonial Board, 1984 60 x 122 cm (artwork) 77 x 139 cm (frame) natural earth pigments on construction ply $15,000 - 18,000 PROVENANCE Field Collected at Bedford Downs Station in 1984 Cooee Art, NSW, 1995 Private collection, Vic This board was originally painted by Rover Thomas in 1984. The painting depicts Tawurr, described by Paddy Jaminji as a ‘half one’ kangaroo. The ‘half one’ is said to be dead inside a cave at the top of Elgee Cliffs on Bedford Downs station where a rock painting of this image can be seen. Though said to be dead, Tawurr has metamorphosed into apparently inanimate rocks but retains life essence and potency. Tawurr is a male of the Jungurrayi subsection. In the Gurrir Gurrir, the old woman’s spirit looks at Tawurr.’* The painting is accompanied by a letter explaining the circumstances under which it was collected in the field. Rover subsequently endorsed the work and agreed to the reproduction of this image as a signed limited edition screenprint. He personally signed each of the 49 copies in the edition. Ten of these screenprints have appeared at public auction since 2006. * Will Christensen, ‘Paddy Jaminji and the Gurrir Gurrir’ in Judith Ryan with Kim Akerman, Images of Power: Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p.35 cf. For related work attributed to Paddy Jaminji and Rover Thomas see The Dreaming Kangaroo at Nine Mile, near Wyndham [No 8 in the series of ten paintings of The Kril Kril Ceremony], 1983 natural earth pigments and binders on composition board, 120 x 60 cm Purchased by the National Gallery of Australia, 1984, Accession No: NGA 84.3030.8

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Image courtesy of Neil McCljoud

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LOT #23 Paddy Jampin Jaminji (c1912 - 1996) Old Tracks to Dreaming Place, 1979 120 x 60 cm (frame 139 x 78 cm) natural earth pigments on construction ply $8,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Purchased at Warmun in 1981 Robin Beesey* Collection, Vic Thence by descent. *Robin Beesey was the Art Coordinator at Warlyirti Artists, Balgo Hills between 1992-1995 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. This work was painted at Bedford Station and collected by Neil McLeod and David Mowaljarlai during a field trip researching sites for a book on Mowaljarlai in 1981.

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LOT #24 John Mawurndjul (1952 - ) Mardayin at Dilebang, 2006 100 x 40 cm natural earth pigments on Eucalyptus bark $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts and Culture, NT Private Collection, Vic Born at Mumeka, located near the Mann River in Central Arnhem Land, an important site for the Kurulk clan, John Mawurndjurl was tought by his elder brother Jimmy Njiminjuma and his uncle Peter Marralwana., Today he guides the development of his children and his niece Irenie Ngalinba, Jimmy Njiminjuma’s daughter. Originally painting mythological figures such as the Ngalyod the Rainbow serpent and totemic creatures, he has over recent years developed a more abstract style with many grid forms interlocking over the entire surface, as depicted in Mardayin Design, where the complex composition of Mawurndjul’s intricate rarrk skills is evident.* Rarrk: John Mawurndjul, Journey Through Time in Northern Australia, Museum Tinguely, Basel, 2005, p. 43

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LOT #25 Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (1932 - 2006) Wadtj - The Rock Man, c.1996 150 x 100 cm natural earth pigments on arches hand made cotton rag paper $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Balang Crafts, Katherine NT The Adrian Newstead Collection, NSW Paddy Fordham was the leader of the Rembarnga people. In this episodic narrative image Paddy told the story of Waditj - the Rock man and how he turned into stone.

Waditj lived with his clan in the Wybalk country. He was a devil man and was very cruel and greedy. One day he decided to fulfil his desire to create more havoc in the world. He told his people that he was leaving to see what he could take from the neighbouring tribes.

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On his journey Waditj came to a billabong and could hear songs from the Wagilag Sisters Dreaming being sung by people of the Ngalbon clan. As he got closer he began to feel heavy and found it hard to move. Black stone like lumps began growing all over his body. Rembarnga people say that Waditj was punished for his evil and was turned into a rock by the Bolong (Rainbow Serpent) the most powerful spirit of all.

LOT #26 Jarinyanu David Downs (1925 - 1995) Kurtal - Ancestral Rainman, 1993 112 x 91cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $2,200 - 2,800 PROVENANCE Commissioned by Duncan Kentish Cat No. 013/93 Greenaway Art Gallery, SA Private Collection, Vic For David Downs, the primary vehicle for expressing his two-way religious philosophy was the song cycle of Kurtal, the ancestral rain man. He was born on a distant island and traveled to the Kimberley as a cyclone. As he moved further inland he created places of ‘living water’ (permanent water sources) and visited other rain men, occasionally gaining valuable items from them through trickery and magic.

The inscription verso reads ‘Self portrait: Dream resolution of the three lights into one’.

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LOT #27 Lily Karadada (c1937 - ) Wandjina, 1990 90 x 60 cm natural earth pigments on linen $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE Narrangunny Art Traders, W.A Cat No. N-1302LK Private Collection NSW It is said that the Wandjina is the embodiment of the rain spirit and ancestor of the Wonnambal, Ngarinyin and Worrora peoples of the North West Kimberley. As such it is a powerful fertility figure. Wandjina are prolific along the walls of caves in the plateau areas of 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 returned in that form.

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LOT #28 Curly Bardagadapu (c1924 - 1987) Namangurr (Barramundi) and Mimi Spirit, c.1975 70 x 40 cm natural earth pigments on stringybark $1,500 - 1,,800 PROVENANCE Oenpelli Mission, NT Gabrielle Roy - Aboriginal and Pacific Gallery, NSW Private Collection, NSW Mossgreen, Fine Early Aboriginal And Oceanic Art, 2008 Private Collection, NSW Curly Bardagadapu was an important bark painter in Western Arnhem Land in the 1970s and a contemporary of Peter Maralwanga. He was tutored by Yirawala when they shared outstations at Table Hill and Marrkolidjban, which both men helped to establish. His paintings were included in a number of landmark exhibitions during the 1970s and 1980s and are held in most major Australian institutions.

Curly Bardagadapu ’s works are mainly of totemic animals and are invariably on a rectangular bark with a unicolour background.

They often have the body completely infilled with rarrk (cross hatching) and some of the extremities filled in with a block of solid colour as exemplified by this work.

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LOT #29 Wally Mandarrk (1915 - 1987) Mantids - Praying Mantises, 1979 88.5 x 26 cm natural earth pigments on bark $1,200 - 1,800 PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts and Culture, NT Cat No. 79/WHLA Private Collection, Qld Wally Mandarrk lived at Mangallod outstation at the time he painted this early bark painting. It depicts Mantids otherwise known as Praying Mantises. These predatory insects use their powerful front legs to snatch and hold other small animals. While smaller species feed on insects large species are able to capture small vertebrates such as frogs and lizards. Here they are depicted at a sacred site in the artist’s country.

LOT #30 Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek (1926 - 2009) Three Nailfish and Crocodile, c.1985 152 x 50 cm natural earth pigments on paper $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Marrawuddi Gallery, Kakadu, NT The Adrian Newstead Collection, NSW

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Lofty belonged to a group of artists from Southern Kunjinjku, in Arnhem Land, who originally worked together in Oenpelli and went on to establish outstations in the stone country. Their work was characterised by a relatively unadorned style of painting and the use of strong simple red hatching in the interior of their work. Lofty is known to have started painting on rock, close to his clan lands. The use of a hatching style reminiscent of rock painting was deliberate and marked his ‘stone country’ affiliations. He and his countrymen maintained this aspect of their style partly to distinguish themselves from other groups living in Oenpelli, who employed a more lively multi-coloured infill style. The subject of this painting is associated with Lofty’s clan lands in the headwaters of the Liverpool river. This vital Creator Spirit brings the rains of the wet season and revives the landscape annually.

Lofty shows the Crocodile and Nail Fish figures as a complex transformational image.

LOT #31 Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (1932 - 2006) Balangjangalang Spirit, 1989 102 x 40 cm natural earth pigments on bark $1,500 - 1,800 PROVENANCE Mimi Arts and Crafts, Katherine, NT Private Collection NSW Having learnt traditional bark painting from his father and being steeped in ancient stories, Paddy Fordham’s innovative talent won him quick recognition. In time he became the senior elder of the Rembarrnga people and divided his time between making artworks and leading the Rembarrnga in important ceremonial activities throughout the Northern Territory.

A favourite theme was depictions and stories associated with Balangalngalang. These ambiguous beings are responsible for seeing that things in the human world go in accordance with the will of the Spirits. They are said to be half-human, half-spirit, with the power to transform at will. They are wise and provide guidance and healing, often appearing in the form of animals or birds, but generally living as humans.

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LOT #32 John Mawurndjul (1952 - ) Yawk Yawk Spirit, 1979 98 x 25.5 cm natural earth pigment on stringybark $1,800 - 2,200 PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts and Culture Cat No. 23 (in chalk verso) Private Collection, Qld Mawurndjul painted collaboratively with his elder brother Jimmy Njiminjuma until the late 1970s. The Yawk Yawk sisters Likanaya and Marrayka were impregnated by Luma Luma during the creation of sacred fertility sites. This was a regular theme during Njiminjuma’s time, and also during Mawurndjul early career and on into the early 1990s. Njiminjuma’s influence is seen in this work in which the Yawk Yawk’s hair is in plain white ochre rather than in-filled with rarrk. The Yawk Yawk’s tail and body appears to be part crocodile, part fish and may indicate her transformative powers.

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LOT #33 David Yirawala (1903 - 1976) Lumah Lumah’s Daughters, 1963 43 x 20 cm (55.5 x 30 cm frame) natural earth pigments on bark $9,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Painted at Minjilang (Croker Island) Western Arnhem Land Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, July, 2004 Private Collection, Vic EXHIBITED Australian Galleries, Cooee at Australian Galleries, April 2016 Cooee Art, 35th Anniversary Exhibition, 2016 - 2017 ‘On the island of Goireeba, the two daughters of Lumah Lumah are calling out and singing after the death of their father. Lumah Lumah was speared to death by coastal tribes when he had outlived his usefulness as a creator being. He began eating people.

Lumah Lumah was the big boss for the Maraian ceremony. He brought the sacred Rangga for the tribes, and taught them the law and mysteries for the Dreaming to ensure the survival of man and nature’* *Story transcribed from label verso.

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LOT #34 Tommy McRae (c. 1820 - 1901) Untitled (fighting Figures), c.1880 17 x 29.5 cm Pen and ink on paper laid down on card $40,000 - 50,000 PROVENANCE Acquired by Alan Knox Buckley, Headmaster of Rutherglen School, in the last quarter of the 19th century Thence by Descent Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, July 2006 Private Collection Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, July 2010 Private Collection, Vic Nineteenth century artist Tommy McRae lived and worked along Victoria’s upper Murray River area during the period that saw the disruption and ultimate end of traditional tribal life amongst the Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia. He was in his fifties and towards the end of this physically demanding work life when he began to draw consistently. A steady flow of interest and paid commissions followed. McRae was able to set up an independent camp for himself and family on the shores of Lake Moodemere, a large freshwater lake of ceremonial importance to his people.

Following his death, many of his drawings were collected and housed in museum archives. They were considered to be examples of ‘the dawn of art’ or an historical record of nineteenth century life. Though McRae’s images were rendered with a keen sense of observation, their true artistic merit and historical significance has only emerged relatively recently. During the 1980s and 1990s his drawings were included in major touring exhibitions and McRae is now acknowledged as a significant figure in the history of Australian visual culture whose art practice was ’a creative choice within a culture of extraordinary complexity’. * It is now well over a century since McRae created this captivating, lively and compelling work. It’s rarity and fragility enhances it’s ingenious beauty. *Sayers, Andrew, Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century. 1994, Australia. Oxford University Press.

Ref. Onus, Lin, Southwest, Southeast Australia and Tasmania, in Aratjara; Art of the first Australians. 1993, Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria.

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LOT #35 Ignatia (Dangawala) Jangarra (1930 - c. 1990) Two Wandjina , 1985 63 x 25 cm natural earth pigments on bark $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE Painted at Kalumburu, WA Private Collection, NSW Sotheby’s, Aboriginal Art, 2004 Private Collection, Vic Little if anything is known about Ignatia’s childhood and youth. She first became prominent at Kalumburu in the mid 1980s where she lived adjacent to the Benedictine mission (Est.1907), 25 kilometres from the northern coast. Both here and at Mowanjum (the site of a former Presbyterian mission), local authorities had exercised strong control over the Woonambal landowners who were taught that their tribal customs and beliefs were at odds with Christianity.

Ignatia was born around 1930 and was already in her mid 50s when she first began creating bark paintings related to the Wandjina. She and her husband were responsible for maintaining the remnants of these spirit ancestors which are said to have lain down in caves and turned into paintings on the cave walls after their time on the earth.

The Wandjina are powerful fertility spirits. They are said to keep the spirits of unborn babies in the freshwater pools where women collect fish to eat when they want to become pregnant. They are traditionally characterised by large round black eyes fringed with short lashes. The centre of the chest features a solid black, red or simply outlined oval, which is believed to represent its spiritual essence. The almost circular head is surrounded by a halo or headdress representing hair, clouds and lightning.

The inclusion of a mouth is rare. Its absence is most often attributed to a belief that painting a mouth on the Wandjina’s face would bring perpetual rain.

Images of the Wandjina created on bark, canvas or slate were viewed by artists such as Ignatia as purely reproductions of the ‘real’ Wandjina’s adorning the cave walls at their most important Dreaming sites. Her primary artistic inspiration and purpose lay in her responsibility to maintain these ancestral beings, by repainting them and ‘keeping them strong’.

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Image courtesy of Neil McCleod

EXHIBITED ARCO Exhibition, Spain, 1994 Masterworks, Manly Regional Gallery, Tweed River Art Gallery, 2008 LITERATURE Cover of Lawson-Menzies Aboriginal Art, 23 May 2007 catalogue Lin Onus played a pivotal role in renegotiating the history of colonial and Aboriginal Australia through his practice as an artist and advocate. A Yorta Yorta man from Cumeraganga on the Murray River, he grew up in urban Melbourne strongly influenced by the work of realist painters including Albert Namatjira and began his own career as a watercolorist and photorealist. Onus’s work evolved after his ‘adoption’ by Arnhem Land Elders in the mid 1980s conferred upon him the right to use certain traditional stories and designs. This enabled him to develop a distinctive visual language. Through a fusion of Western and Aboriginal systems of organising space, vision and design he sought to portray landscape as a carrier of myth, history, and ideology.

In this, and other works on a similar theme, Onus depicted the Dreaming reality encoded in the landscape, seen and comprehended only by those who have the knowledge of, and willingness to embrace an alternate vision and history. Lin Onus was a cultural provocateur who believed that there was no distinction between the political and the beautiful. His contribution changed forever the perceptions about the nature of Aboriginal art and in the inadequate terminology of our times put urban art, as it is popularly known, onto the cultural map in Australia Fish and Storm Clouds, shows the artist’s spiritual homeland, the Bahmah Forest, reflected on the surface of a waterhole while haunting, almost translucent ‘indigenised’ fish swim beneath reflections of the tall spindly gum trees alongside the river and the white cumulus clouds overhead. These are exquisitely depicted within the still surface of the stream evoking a magical Dreamtime otherworldly and mystical space of Aboriginal myth and legend, where beyond the immediately apparent there resides other powerful stories and dimensions of being.

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LOT #36 Lin Onus (1948 - 1996) Fish and Storm Clouds (Guyi Na Ngawalngwal), 1994 183 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on cavnas $380,000 - 480,000 PROVENANCE Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Vic Private Collection, Madrid Spain Lawson~Menzies, Aboriginal Fine Art, May, 2007 Private Collection, Qld

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LOT #37 Freddie Timms (1946 - 2017) Ant Spring, 1997 101 x 160.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $7,000 - 9,000 PROVENANCE Watters Gallery, NSW (in association with Tony Oliver) The Lowenstein Collection, Vic 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 c.1946, he followed in his father’s footsteps, living the stockman’s 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 Warmun where he worked as a gardener at the Argyle Mine.

In a career that spanned more than 20 years Freddie 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.

Freddie Timms was foremost amongst those Gija artists of the second generation. His, is a unique Gija perspective on the history of white interaction with his people.

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LOT #38 Sally (Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda) Gabori (1924 - 2015) Dibirdibi Country, 2001 101 x 152 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $7,000 - 9,000 PROVENANCE Mornington Island Art, Qld Cat No. 2509-L-SG0801 The Harding Family Collection, NSW Inscription on accompanying certificate reads “This is where the big saltpan on my husband’s country meets the grassy plain where we collect Malbaa which is the grass we weave into string bags and nets. “

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LOT #39 Shorty Jangala Robertson (c1930 - 2014) Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming), 2014 91 x 91 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen $3,500 - 4,500 PROVENANCE Warlukurlangu Art Centre, NT, Cat No. 1417/14 Fireworks Gallery Brisbane, Qld, Cat No. FW14622 Private Collection, Qld

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The site depicted in this painting is Puyurru, west of Yuendumu. In the usually dry creek beds are water soakages or naturally occurring wells. Two Jangala men, rainmakers, sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm. It travelled across the country, with the lightning striking the land. This storm met up with another storm from Wapurtali, to the west. It was picked up by ekirrkarlani the brown falcon and carried further west until it dropped the storm at Purlungyanu, where it created a giant soakage. At Puyurru the bird dug up a giant snake, ‘warnayarra’ (rainbow serpent) and the snake carried water to create the large lake, Jillyiumpa, close to an outstation in this country. This story belongs to Jangala men and Nangala women. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, associated sites and other elements. In many paintings of this Jukurrpa curved and straight lines represent the ‘ngawarra’ (flood waters) running through the landscape. Motifs frequently used to depict this story include small circles representing ‘mulju’ (water soakages) and short bars depicting ‘mangkurdu’ (cumulus & stratocumulus clouds)

LOT #40 Danie Mellor (1971 - ) Agent of Change, 2005 71 x 26 cm glazec slip cast earthenware $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE Sourced direct from the artist, NSW Fireworks Gallery, Qld, FW8703 EXHIBITED A Backward Glance, Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane, 2005 RELATED WORKS The Ranger, 2002; Sea Hund (Hound), 2002; and Wachter dein Kultur (Guardian of Culture), 2002, slipcast and glazed white earthenware, each 70.5 cm height, collection of the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Danie Mellor began creating art at the age of 19 when he enrolled at the North Adelaide School of Art. He went on to study at the Canberra School of Art, the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, and was awarded a PhD from the School of Art at the National Institute of Art at ANU in 2004.

Mellor’s work is varied. He produces prints, drawings and paintings but also employs ceramics, mosaic, glass, steel and wood in his works. His interest is in investigating cultural differences in perception and ways of reading objects within the gallery context.

His themes most often address the entangled histories of Australia’s Indigenous, colonial and settler communities.

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LOT #41 Jimmy Mawukura (Mulgra) Nerrimah (1924 - 2013) Mulura Mulura, 1999 64.5 x 75 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE Mangkaja Arts, WA Cat No. PC178/99 Art Place Gallery, Perth, WA Private Collection, USA

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Jimmy Nerrimah’s country was Wayampajarti, a jila (permanent waterhole) in the north western area of the Great Sandy Desert. He was born 500 km south east of Derby, went through the law as a young man and lived a nomadic existence in the desert until his 60s. As a fully initiated Walmajarri man he knew all of the waterholes and soakages throughout his country and lived in the desert, moving around totally reliant on these. He finally left the bush in his 60s and worked for a time at Nerrimah Station where he got his ‘white fella’ name.

LOT #42 Paji Wajina Yankarr Honeychild (c,1912 - 2004) Nurtu, 2002 90 x 100 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Mangkaja Arts, Fitzroy Crossing, WA Cat No. PC062/02 Lawson Menzies Aboriginal Art, Nov 2005 Tjala Aboriginal Art, NSW Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Private Colection, NSW EXHIBITED Australian Galleries, Cooee Art at Australian Galleries, April 2016 This place is called Nurtu. According to the artist: ‘We used to stay here when I was a kid. This was a living water hole and we would move from place to place. We never stayed in one place.’

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LOT #43 Jack Mengenen Dale (1922 - 2013) Wandjinas, 2004 118 x 180 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen $6000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by Neil McLeod Fine Arts, Vic Japingka Gallery, WA Private Collection, USA

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The artist has painted the Wandjinas from his Mother’s clan. As a senior Law man he was one of only few entrusted custodians of the great Wandjina art sites of the East Kimberley region. This work was painted at his home in Derby in 2004.

LOT #44 Yannima Tommy Watson (1935 - 2017) Umutju - My Country, 2009 100 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $25,000 - 35,000 PROVENANCE Agathon Gallery, NSW Cat No. AGTW090158 Private Collection, USA Umutju is located in the south west of the Northern Territory about 1500 km south of Darwin and 700 km north of the Southern Ocean. The nearest community is Kaltukatjara (Docker River) with a population of around 300 people.

“Watson is a master of invention….Each painting tells a specific story, but the most impressive feature is the artist’s use of colour…. Like Matisse, Watson knows that one may have warm and cool shades of red, warm and cool shades of blue. But he knows this instinctively, without any formal training. What he knows cannot be verbalised, and cannot be taught, yet no one could see these paintings and not be convinced of their profundity.’* * John McDonald, Art Critic, Sydney Morning Herald

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LOT #45 Abie Jangala (1919 - 2002) Water Dreaming - Ngapa, c.1998 150 x 75.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen $10,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Wanayaka Artists, NT Coo-ee Aboriginal Art, NSW Adrian Newstead Private Collection, NSW In his mature years, Abie Jangala was the most senior rainmaker amongst the Warlpiri of the northern Tanami Desert. His Dreamings are associated with the Rainbow Men, who are venerated amongst Warlpiri people. Abie’s early works were created on a deep thalo green or black ground with the stark symbols specifically representing rainbows, lightning, clouds, waterholes and frogs, composed in much the same way as they are etched in relief on the body of rain-makers when covered in kapok or feather down for ceremony.

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Abie typically painted these powerful symbols, which are also recreated in ceremonial ground constructions, in solid black or red, outlined in single alternate bands of bright yellow, green and red dots thereby emboldening the icons to evoke the shimmering and alluring effect of the Rainbow Men and their dramatic manifestation as natural climatic phenomena.

LOT #46 Eubena Nampitjin (1924 - 2013) Mindiki, 2004 100 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $7,000 - 9,000 PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills WA Cat No. 395/04 Private Collection, NSW Eubena has painted her country south west of Balgo. The painting shows the tali (sand hills) and the central circles are tjurrnu (soak waters) at Mindiki. Along the middle stretches of the Canning Stock Route. This is the country where Kinyu the spirit dog lives. Eubena would cover these water soaks with leaves and leave food so Kinyu wouldn’t come out while she lived in, or visited the area.

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LOT #47 Lorna Napurrula Fencer( c1925 - 2006) Digging sticks and Bush Tucker, 2001 180 x 123 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $10,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Warnayaka Arts, N.T The Adrian Newstead Art Collection Accompanied by an image of the artist painting the artwork This painting tells the Dreamtime story of two women of the Napurrula and Nakamarra skin groups who are searching the countryside for bush tucker with their digging sticks.

EXHIBITED Yulyurlu Lorna Fencer Napurrurla, Artback, NT 2013 Margie West Ed., Yulyurlu Lorna Fencer Napurrurla Wakefield Press, 2011, Illustrated p69

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LOT #48 Prince of Wales (c. 1938 - 2002) Body Marks, 1999 60 x 60 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $11,000 - 14,000 PROVENANCE Karen Brown Gallery, NT Cat No. EP/99 The Laverty Collection, NSW Private Collection, Vic EXHIBITED Paintings from Remote Communities: Indigenous Australian Art from the Laverty Collection, Sydney, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2007/ 2008; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle, 2008 ILLUSTRATED Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty et al., Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities - the collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2008, p.252 (illus.)

Midpul, more familiarly known as Prince of Wales, was a custodian and leader of Larakia ceremonies and dances. He was recognised as the first contemporary Aboriginal artist from the Larakia region (surrounding Darwin). His work is a unique rendering onto canvas of the traditional body designs used in Danggalaba ceremonies.

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LOT #49 Christine Nakamarra Yukenbari (1977 - ) Winpurpurla, 2010 120 x 180 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen $24,000 - 28,000 PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills, Cat No. 632/10 Alcaston Gallery, Vic, Cat No. AK16651 Private Collection, Qld This is the largest and most accomplished painting recorded in this artist’s ouevre. Christine Yukenbarri is the daughter of the renowned Balgo Hill’s painters Lucy Yukenbarri and Helicopter Joe Tjungurrayi. She paints in the kinti-kinti (close-close) style of dotting pioneered by her mother.

In this large canvas Christine has painted her mother’s country south of Balgo, in the Great Sandy Desert. This country is named Winpurpurla after the soakwater depicted as the central circle in the painting. Winpurpurla is a permanent waterhole or “living water” place. Women often travel to Winpurpurla to collect a variety of seeds including lukarrari which is ground to make damper and kumpupatja (bush tomato). The definite lines in the painting represent the tali (sandhills) that dominate this country.’

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Western Desert Dialysis Appeal The first remote renal dialysis clinic in Central Australia was established in Kintore in 2004. Today there are 24 dialysis machines in 11 locations, across state borders from the tropics to the desert.

A new 4-chair dialysis unit and 2 nurses houses are being built Pukatja, Ernabella in the APY lands. It will be licensed and operational in 2018.

Of the first year’s operational funding, $200,000 has been raised inculding $32,000 from the first Cooee Art MarketPlace Acution in November 2017.

You can help get this project over the line by purchasing a beautiful work of APY Land art.

The money raised through the sale of lots 50 to 55, will be used for this purpose. These artworks have been donated by a generous supported of the project and are being sold without reserve.

Lots 50 - 55

Or you can donate directly to the WDNWPT via the website (http:// www.westerndesertdialysis.com/contacts/donations ) or by mail to WDNWPT, PO Box 5060, Alice Springs, NT 0871

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LOT #50 Estelle Hogan (1937 - ) Baltatatjara, 2009 137 x 84 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $3,500 - 4,500 PROVENANCE Spinifex Arts Project, WA Cat No. C778 The Price Collection, ACT EXHIBITED Desert Mob, 2009, Araluen Arts Centre, NT Estelle has painted the area where she was born centred on Baltatatjara. Baltatatjara is an important place not only for the Minyma Tjuta (Seven Sisters) story but also a number of other Dreaming stories that cannot be elaborated in detail but include the Wati Kutjara (Two Men) and Kalaya (Emu) story. Because Estelle is the senior owner of a place that has special significance for both men and women, documentation and detail of the paintings is carefully defined and public interpretation involves a level of ‘assumed’ knowledge.

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LOT #51 Ngamayu Ngamaru Bidu (c. 1950 - ) Nyakan Soak, 2007 110 x 80 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $800 - 1,200 PROVENANCE Martumili Artists, WA Cat No. 07-417 The Price Collection, ACT The artist was born at a well called Martilirri [Well 22] on the Canning Stock Route. In her paintings she depicts various water sites such as Martilirri, Kalypa [Well 23] and Kartarru [Well 24]. In the summer she and her clan would stop in those places because they have permanent water.

This work represents Nyakan soak located on a stretch of country crossed by the Canning Stock Route. In the old days this was contested land - where people and cattle vied for fresh water.

After the rain her clan could move back to its homeland because the rock holes and soaks would all be filled again.

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LOT #52 Joan Wumali Nagomara (1953 - ) Nurududu, 2008 120 x 80 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $8,00 - 1,200 PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No.1264/08 Gallery Gondwana, NT The Price Collection, ACT This painting describes a time when the artist was a young girl and used to play in her grandmother’s country, which is south of Lake Mackay. This painting depicts the country with the sandhills (long parallel lines), claypans (long oblong shapes), rocks (small round circles) and bodies of water (which are now dry). This country is special because it is where lots of different groups gathered for ceremonies. For up to 3 months at a time, people from across the Central Desert - Kiwirkurra, Kintore, Jagga Jagga and Balgo would gather, dance, eat mungari (food) and celebrate together. They would use the rocks to grind seeds to make damper.

The central circle represents all these different groups coming together.

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LOT #53 Kay Baker (c. 1955 - ) My Country-Kanpi, 2007 92 x 75 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $800 - 1,200 PROVENANCE Tjungu Palya, SA Cat No. TPKB07140 The Price Collection, ACT Kalaya tjuta (many emus), near Kanpi community, is rocky country where the emus sit and hide. This place is called Kalayangurarinya which means the emu’s home. All the emu chicks are practising Inma (ceremonial dancing and singing). The lines in the painitng are the tracks the chicks left from their dancing. The Inma is in red and white. They came together in a windbreak called palkara. The other section of the canvas are the emus travelling for food. They travelled everywhere eating bush fruits and berries.

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LOT #54 Wentja Morgan Napaltjarri (1945 - ) Rockholes and Sandhills Kintore, 2008 150 x 61 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE Watiyawanu Artists, NT Cat No.10-08545 The Price Collection, ACT This work depicts a Women’s site near an important Rockhole, close to Tjukurla. The roundel’s represent the rockholes as well as ceremonial sites. The lines in the centre represent sandhills. This site was an important one for Wentja’s father, Shorty Lungkata, who was a very prominent senior Papunya artist.

In contrast to her father’s work, Wentja’s paintings are less geometric with a softening of iconography through interlacing with intricate finely dotted patterning. This soft dotting technique is characteristic of many of the Mount Liebig women artists.

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LOT #55 Mitjili Napanangka Gibson (1930 - 2010) Wirnparrku and Yumari, 2006 152 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $15,00 - 18,000 PROVENANCE Gallery Gondwana, NT Cat No. 9637MN Private Collection, NSW This story is associated with Wirnparrku and Yumari, important sites in the artist’s country. A Japangardi was in love with a Nungarrayi woman of the wrong skin. He won her by spinning his hair and winding it onto a spindle. He followed her around until he was able to grab and spirit her away in his arms.

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LOT #56 Daniel Walbidi (1983 - ) Tali and Warla, 2015 205 x 171 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $55,000 - 75,000 PROVENANCE Short Street Gallery, WA Cat No. 828324 Coo-ee Art Gallery, NSW EXHIBITIONS Australian Galleries, Cooee Art at Australian Galleries, April 2016 Cooee Art, The Collectors Edition, August 2015 Daniel Walbidi interprets landscape in his country as striking abstract topographies full of life and movement. While concerned with keeping his culture strong, his works contain striking motifs inspired by the modern world and contemporary art. “We still paint the land,” he says, “but in an evolving way.”* This painting depicts the warla (salt lake) and tali (sand dunes) of the Great Sandy Desert around the Percival Lakes in Western Australia. This country is Daniel’s traditional land, and where his father was born. * Nicolas Rothwell, ‘Our Old People Need to Paint’, The Australian, Jan.29, 2008.

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LOT #57 Trevor Nickolls (1949 - 2012) The Flood, 1990 76 x 56 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Queensland College of Art Private Collection NSW This work was created in 1990 for Nickolls’ solo exhibition following his return from the 1990 Venice Biennale where his work was exhibited alongside that of Rover Thomas.

EXHIBITION Queensland College of Art Gallery, Gondola Dreaming, 1991 Nickolls’ work always dealt with the paradoxes and complexities of being an Aboriginal in an urban environment.

This particular work deals metaphorically with the difficulties of living with the incessant rain of white culture upon Aboriginal society as demonstrated by the sad Aboriginal trapped in white mans house. As it floats without anchor its spirit attempts in futility to escape through the roof. The snakes in this painting represent danger.”

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LOT #58 Gordon Syron (1941 - ) Where the Wildflowers Once Grew, 2003 182 x 182 cm oil paint on canvas $7,000 - 9,000 PROVENANCE Black Fella Dreaming, Bangalow, NSW Private Collection, ACT “This is old Minimbah Land where my Grandma used to live. It is Crown Land and my father’s name, Robert John Syron is on the map. This land is near to the old Coroborree Grounds. The mining companies came through this area and took a foot-deep of top soil off thousands of acres of land. They took all the elements and goodness out of the soil. Now the wildflowers don’t grow anymore. When I was young I could lean off my horse and in seconds have an armful of breathtakingly beautiful wildflowers, I wouldn’t even have to pick them. This land was sacred to me that is why I chose to paint about it.”

Gordon Syron was born in Kempsey NSW and began painting in jail during the 1960s. He is regarded by many as the father of the Urban Aboriginal Art Movement.

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LOT #59 Rosella Namok (1979 - ) New Village, 2016 140 x 180 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $12,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Created in workshop at Fireworks, Qld Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Rosella Namok’s paintings engage traditional themes but she explores them in her own distinctive style, bearing the markers of a modern sensibility. The ‘culture and stories’ of which Namok paints revolve loosely around several narratives. They are stories of her social and physical or natural environment featuring events such as hunting and fishing expeditions, weather patterns of rain and wind, or the stories of Kapay and Kuyan, the two opposing moieties that govern marriage relations in Namok’s Ungkum community. Also apparent in Namok’s work are themes relating to traditional knowledge of country including kinship relations as well as tribal law as it affects both the individual and their community. In fact, it was her wish to explore and establish her correct lineage, her ‘right place’ within the whole, that initially sparked much of the imagery that takes shape throughout the entire scope of Namok’s art.

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LOT #60 Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910 - 1996) Yam Dreaming, 1996 122 x 183.5 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen $50,000 - 70,000 PROVENANCE Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat No. 5567 Tolarno Galleries, Vic Private Collection, NSW EXHIBITION Tolarno Galleries, Exhibited in Singapore, 1997 Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born at Anilitye (Boundary Bore) and began painting on canvas when in her late 70s. She was awarded the Australian Creative Fellowship in 1992 and continued painting prolifically until her death in 1996. The subject of this major work, privately commissioned in 1994, is Arlatyeye, the Pencil Yam or Bush Potato. This is a valuable food source and the subject of important songs, dances and ceremonies amongst Eastern Anmatjerre people. It was the subject of a great number of Emily Kngwarreye’s paintings, which were created, most familiarly, in a vast array of vibrant colours. In this painting however, 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 eat.

Cf. For stylistically similar works see: ‘Wild Yam I, 1995’ in Janet Holt (et. al. ), ‘Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, 1998, plate 70 illus. pp 166-167 and various other works pp 168-180.

Also the cover image of the Retrospective catalogue ‘Emily Kngwarreye, Alhalkere Paintings from Utopia, Margo Neale (ed), Queensland Art Gallery, 1998

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LOT #61 Kathleen Ngal (1930 - ) Arlperre-Bush Plum, 2006 152 x 120 cm synthetic polymer on Belgian linen $8,000 - 10,000 PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, N.T Cat No. 05I19 Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Kathleen’s works can be interpreted as sophisticated mind maps depicting cultural knowledge of her country as well as its physical geography. Thousands of dots of colour are rained across her brilliant canvases denoting the varied flora and the geographical location of the Bush Plum.

Best known for the way in which she depicts the white flowers of the Bush Plum over a shimmering background of colour, Kathleen often employs a variety of blues, purples and reds in her under-painting.

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LOT #62 Kathleen Petyarre (1940 - ) Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming, 2006 122 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $12,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Gallerie Australis, SA Cat No. GAKP0306482 Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Maunsell Wickes at Barry Stern Galleries, NSW Private Collection, NSW The centre of this painting represents a sacred Women’s Dreaming site associated with the green pea (awenth). Depicted throughout the painting are seeds (ntang) of the pea, which are an important food for the ‘traditional healer’ (ngangkar), and the Mountain Devil Lizard (Arnkerrth). The elongated X-shape represents two of the artist’s Dreaming paths that meet at this sacred place. The painting portrays the area scattered with seeds and the sand-hills created by the Mountain Devil Lizard and swirling sandstorms as they moved across the country.

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LOT #63 Paddy (Teeampini Ripijingimpi) Henry (c1925 - 1999) Tokampini (Bird), c.1980 62 x 15 x 12 cm natural earth pigment on carved ironwood $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE Tiwi Pima Art, Bathurst Island NT Private Collection, USA Private Collection, NSW Paddy Henry was a renowned carver and ceremonial leader on Melville Island.

Tokampini (birds) are present throughout the creation story of the Tiwi people. They were mortal beings who were messengers, mourners, informers and law makers. They bore witness to the end of the creation period and were fundamental in making and delivering to mortal Tiwi people the new laws for the land. Tokampini’s daughter Bima and her son Jinarni are central figures in the Purrukapali creation myth and song cycle which lies at the centre of Tiwi ceremony and culture.

LOT #64 Kitty Kantilla (1928 - 2003) Jilamarra, 1998 57 x 75 cm (78 x 96 cm framed) natural earth pigments on arches paper $6,000 - 8,000

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PROVENANCE Jilamarra Arts, Melville Island, NT, 1998 Gabriella Roy, NSW Cat No. KK99LP423 Private Collection NSW Private Collection SA EXHIBITION Aboriginal and Pacific Arts, 1999 Tineriba Art Gallery SA, Dec 2017

LOT #65 Jean Baptiste Apuatimi (1940 - 2013) Jirtaka (sawfish), 2011 153 x 122 cm natural earth pigments on Belgian linen $18,000 - 22,000 PROVENANCE Tiwi Design, Bathurst Island NT Cat No. MU11JBA241 Finalist in the 2011 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards, Darwin Art Mob, Tas, Cat No. AM8562/12 EXHIBITED Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards, Darwin, 2011 Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, was just 14 years of age when she married her late husband, Declan Apuatimi. Declan was a renowned dancer, singer and the pre-eminent Tiwi artist of his time. During their life together they raised fourteen children and, as she watched him create poles for important ceremonies, he taught her how to mix ochres and paint.

“Jirtaka is lovely tucker. My husband used to get that fish and bring him home. After we eat that fish we get that bone and paint him up. First black, then Jilamara (body paint design). The first painting my husband did was on that bone. I like to paint this because my husband taught me.” - Artist’s statement for NATSIA award

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LOT #66 Timothy Cook (1958 - ) Untitled (Tutini and Tunga), 2007 260 x 15 cm natural earth pigments on carved wood $9,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Jilamara Arts and Crafts, NT Cat. No. TC-102-07 The Harding Family Collection, NSW EXHIBITION Noosa Long Weekend Arts Festival 2008, Qld The Pukumani ceremony is held on the land of the deceased to ensure the spirit of the deceased returns to its country and continues its journey to another life.

In an integral part of the ceremony, huge solid hardwood poles (tutini) are assembled around the ceremonial site as monuments to the deceased… At the end of the ceremony, tunga, stitched bark baskets, are placed over the top of the tutini – an act akin to candle stoppers snuffing out the light of life.

The tutini and tunga are left in place at the end of the ceremony. Eventually burnt by bushfire, eaten by termites and eroded by water and wind, these monuments, the last earthly physical reminder of the deceased, are reclaimed by the country, together with their wandering spirit.

No other living artist can match Cook’s ability to animate these massive ironwood and bloodwood poles and folded stringybark buckets into seemingly spirited forms. The very act of painting his bold, gestural marks on these massive sculpted forms gives Cook’s tutini a sense of movement. They are completely transformed as darkness envelopes the ceremonial participants and they seemingly come to life, themselves central ceremonial figures, guiding the spirits of the deceased into their spirit world.* *Bruce McLean, ‘Everything Returns to Place’ in Seva Frangos et al., Timothy Cook: Dancing with the Moon, UWA Publishing, Crawley, 2015, p.67

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Detail

LOT #67 Raelene Kerinauia & James Tipiloura (1962 - ) Pukamani Pole, 2003 266 x 18 cm native timber (ironwood) & natural ochre pigment $1,500 - 1,800 PROVENANCE Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association, NT FireWorks Gallery, Qld, Cat No. FW7458 Raelene Kerinauia, was brought up with her grandmother’s family on the shore of the narrow Apsley Strait and taught to paint

by Kitty Kantilla, and other old ladies living at Paru outstation. The old women encouraged Raelene to take up the most traditional Tiwi painting implement - the “pwoja,” or decoration comb, used for painting the bodies of participants in ceremonial dance. Pwoja marks are central to Tiwi art: they are the straight-line dots one sees on old barks and carved poles. In the Tiwi language, the word “pwoja” designates not just a comb cut from ironwood but a piece taken from a body. Raelene first began using a pwoja comb made by her husband James Tipiloura in 1999. She took to the instrument at once, it meshed with her liking for symmetry in design. This pole was made by husband a wife in collaboration.

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LOT #68 Pedro Woanamerri (1974 - ) Pwoja-Pukumani Body Paint Design, 2004 203 x 61 cm natural earth pigments on canvas $3,000 - 4,000 PROVENANCE Jilamara Arts, Melville Island, NT Cat No. 263-04 Alcaston Gallery, Vic Cat No. AK10557 Private Collection SA EXHIBITED Tineriba Art Gallery SA, Dec 2017.

This ceremonial design was painted using a brush and a Pwoja (wooden painting comb)that the artist made himself from ironwood.

The lines of the brush represent the miyinga (scars on the body) and the dots from the pwoja represent yirrinkiripwoja (body painting). During the Pukumani,funeral ceremony, the finished design disguises the participant from Moperdidis (bad spirits of the dead) Pedro uses natural ochres that he collects from around Milikapiti community where he lives. The white ochre is collected near the beach and the yellow ochre comes from further inland. To achieve the red ochre Tiwi artists burn the yellow ochre in an open fire.

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LOT #69 Kitty Kantilla (1928 - 2003) Jilamarra, 1997 56 x 76 cm cm natural earth pigments on paper $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Jilamara Arts, Tiwi Islands, NT Aboriginal and Pacific Arts, NSW Private Collection, NSW Rex Irwin, NSW Private Collection, NSW EXHIBITED Aboriginal and Pacific Arts, Kitty Kantilla, 1998 Rex Irwin, Art Sydney, NSW, 2007 Kitty Kantilla’s art, and indeed all Tiwi art, is informed by the ornate body painting of the Pukumani ceremony. What makes the art of Kitty Kantilla and those of her generation so inherently important is that the meaning of these designs, characterized by abstract patterns made up of dots and lines, has been largely lost since the missionary era. She was amongst the very last who inherited these designs intact from her father.

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LOT #70 Queenie McKenzie (1930 - 1998) Hills of Texas Downs, 1995 113 x 170 cm natural earth pigments on canvas $38,000 - 42,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by Neil McLeod Fine Art Art Mob Gallery, Tas Cat No. AM8562/12 signed by artist verso.

Queenie McKenzie earned acclaim with distinct and influential artworks such as this striking example. It depicts Old Texas Station where men would collect white quartz used for spear heads. The rocky hills are seen as separate forms on the edge of the desert plain in the country of her childhood and early working life.

She died in 1998, the year the Warmun art centre was formerly established. In 1995, the year this work was painted, she worked in the pensioner unit where she lived with Rover Thomas and his wife Rita. Here she painted the majority of her major works for entrepreneurs who visited the community from time to time.

In an interview towards the end of her life she reminded us that the only word she had ever learnt to read and write was her own name, as it was required to sign her paintings. Yet she was, in her lifetime and is 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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LOT #71 Yannima Tommy Watson (1935 - 2017) Pirurpa Kalarijtja (Eagle Dreaming), 2013 102 x 224 cm (2 panels102 x 112cm each) synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $40,000 - 50,000 PROVENANCE Yanda Art, NT Cat No. TW201368 Piermarq Gallery, NSW Private Collection, NSW The artist has depicted the country of his birth not far from Kata Juta and Uluru. According to the creation story of this area a major battle took place between the White Cockatoo and the Eagle, during which white feathers were scattered about and the landscape became indented by the entangled protagonists crashing to the ground several times. Here we see underground water in the form of the subterranean streams that filled these depressions with water and the circular amphitheatre that was created by the sweep of wings.

In keeping with the depiction of Dreaming stories throughout the Western Desert, the landscape is rendered sacred and numinous through the actions of mythic creator beings during it formation.

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LOT #72 Walangkurra Napanangka (1946 - 2014) Untitled (designs associated with the rockhole and soakage site of Marrapinti), 2005 122 x 91 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, Cat No. WN0506231 Corporate Collection NSW Private Collection NSW As one of the last generation to remember a childhood lived in the desert, Walangkura Napanangka travelled by foot over the hundreds of kilometres from her remote desert home before settling at Papunya with her mother Inyuwa, adoptive father Tutuma Tjapangati, and sister Pirrmangka Napanangka all of whom became artists.

In 1994 she participated in the historic women’s collaborative painting project that was initiated by the older women, and in time Walangkura became one of Papunya Tula’s most senior women artists. Her first solo exhibition was held at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 2003, and this was followed by another at Utopia Art Sydney in 2004.

This painting depicts the designs associated with the rockhole and soakage site of Marrapinti, to the west of Pollock Hills in Western Australia. A large group of ancestral women camped at this rockhole making the nose-bones which are worn through a hole in the nose web. The women later travelled east passing through Wala Wala, Kiwirrkura, Ngaminya and Wirrulnga. These nose-bones were originally worn by both men and women but are now only worn by male elders on ceremonial occasions.

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LOT #73 Dorothy Napangardi (c1956 - 2013) Salt on Mina Mina, 2008 91 x 61 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Gallery Gondwana, NT Cat. No. 9647DN Private Collection, NT This work tracing the grid-like patterns of the salt encrustations on the Mina Mina clay pans compels the viewer’s eye to dance across the painted surface, just as the ancestral Karntakurlangu danced in their hundreds across the country during the region’s creation. The lines of white dots trace the travels of these female ancestors as they danced in joyous exultation, through the saltpans, spinifex and sand hills clutching their digging sticks in their outstretched hands. Dorothy’s contemporary Kathleen Petyarre, has been quoted as saying ‘those Walpiri ladies, they’re mad about dancing, they go round and round and round dancing, they’re always dancing’ * Little wonder then, that the surfaces of Dorothy’s canvases become dense rhythms of grids, as she mapped the paths of these dancing women. * Nicholls, Christine & Napangardi, Dorothy. 2002. Dancing Up Country: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi. Sydney. Museum of Contemporary Art. p 22

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LOT #74 Polly Ngal (1936 - ) Anwekety (Bush Plum), 2008 119 x 120 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $10,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, NT Code 08F07 Private Collection NT Now in her eighties, Polly Ngal belongs to the oldest living generation of Utopia women and ranks amongst the most accomplished painters who have worked there during the past 20 years. Like many others including Emily Kame Kngawarrye and Gloria Petyarre, Polly began her career in late 1979 creating images in Batik, prior to the introduction of painting on canvas in the late 1980s.

Poly Ngal’s paintings often depict bright yellow seeds, a feast for emus, amongst the Bush Plums that grow in her country. Her paintings are borne from traditional knowledge and her confident approach to painting can be seen in the way she assembles streams of seeds, piling dots upon each other to create rich thick fields by employing glowing palettes of colour. Her subject matter is drawn from acute observation and memory, intimate knowledge of country, personal history and ancestral journey.

Seamless in her portrayal of these elements her paintings are sensory mind maps that reveal the artist’s place, her sense of self, and her world view.

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LOT #75 Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910 - 1996) Awelye - Women’s Ceremony, 1993 115 x 140 cm synthetic polymer on linen $20,000 - 25,000 PROVENANCE Purchased in Utopia direct from the artist by an adult Education teacher in 1993 Fireworks Gallery, Qld ,Cat No.14637 Private Collection Qld signed verso ‘Emily’.

Beginning late in 1991 and throughout the following years, Emily explored a range of techniques after largely abandoning the fine dotting and submerged linear tracking which had characterised her earlier works. She used larger brushes to create broader circular dabs of paint, that often involved ‘double dipping’ the brush in various colours, before attacking the canvas. In this work, she shows tremendous confidence and great subtlety of colour in rendering tracks of the yam roots and the final stages before maturity following a floral profusion during an abundant and wet summer. The linear application of broad dotting creates swathing rhythm across the canvas. Despite the sweeping gestural flourishes, the resultant image contains considerable nuances, which evoke the physical and spiritual fertility of the land, and radiance of being, that is sought during ceremony.

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LOT #76 Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi (1967 - ) Seven Sisters Dreaming, 2010 60 x 119 cm synthetic polymer paint of Belgian linen $3,000 - 5,000 PROVENANCE Des Rogers Desert Art, Vic Cat No. DRSN977 Aboriginal Fine Art Gallery, NT Private Collection, WA accompanied by an original certificate including an image of the artist and the painting This painting by Clifford Possum’s eldest daughter, represents the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, the stars located in the constellation of Taurus. Wati Nguru, a powerful and malevolent trickster chased the Seven Sisters across the country before following them into the night sky. This Dreaming crosses the entire Australian continent from the APY Lands in the south to Mount Warning near Byron Bay. on the coast of the Pacific ocean. Many sacred sites are associated with this story which passes through Western Australia, the Northern Territory, outback Queensland and NSW and on to the east coast.

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LOT #77 Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932 - 2002) Love Story, 1990 80 x 125 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $10,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Des Rogers Desert Art, Vic Cat No. DRSN04 Aboriginal Dreamings Gallery, ACT Cat No. ADAG375-10-90 Private Collection, WA accompanied by images of the artist with the panting and a CD This Dreaming took place at the sacred rockhole site of Ngarlu, for which the Tjungurrayi and Tjapaltjarri men are custodians.

The painting is about ‘forbidden love’. The Tjungurrayi man,Liltipilinti had been smitten by a Napangarti woman who was ‘wrong skin’. He wins her by performing Love Magic - ‘singing’ her while spinning his hair on a spindle. The work depicts the man’s footprints as he searches for the materials to make the spindle while the foots prints descending to and from the centre represent the Woman entering and departing the scene . The U shape shows where and how he sat to create the sand painting and weave the spell required. The cloudy overlay represents a small willy willy that swept through the scene in order to disrupt the spell.

The design, seen from a bird’s eye view, achieves a three dimensional quality, with the hair spindle appearing to project upwards. c.f. For a full account of this story see Vivien Johnson, Clifford Possum, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2003, p247; and for other examples of this story see cat. no. 47 (illus. p183) and 53 (illus. p249)

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LOT #78 Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi (1967 - ) Grandmother’s Country 145 x 185 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen $10,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Aboriginal Fine Arts Gallery, NT Cat No. 85413 Private collection, SA EXHIBITION Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Women’s Work, 2012 Gabriella was born in 1967 at Mt Allan, in the Northern Territory. She is the eldest daughter of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (dec 2002). She began painting at an early age, under the tuition of her father and often collaborated with him, producing important works.

Gabriella’s paintings relate Dreaming stories handed down to her from her paternal grandmother, Long Rose Nungala and the other senior women who taught her in her formative years - these include Grandmother’s Dreaming, Seven Sisters Dreaming (Milky Way), Goanna, Bush Tucker and Serpent Dreamings of her Anmatyerre heritage.

She was the youngest artist to be awarded the prestigious Alice Springs Art Prize whilst still studying at Yirara College at the age of 16. Her natural talent and knowledge was enhanced through her association with the earliest and most revered Papunya desert painters incuding her father’s brother Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, Long Jack Phillipus, Johnny Warrankgula Tjupurula, and many others.

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LOT #79 Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932 - 2002) Larumba (Honey Ant), c.1995 180 x 127 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $35,000 - 45,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by Aranda Art, Vic Private Collection, Vic Accompanied by an image of the artist with the painting and signing the back of the artwork Through a parallel pattern of lines the artist gives form to the underground claypan that flows with the salt filled waters from Napperby Lake, situated at the border of the Tanami and Simpson Desert in the artist’s home country of Larumba (Napperby).

This was his ‘borning place’, or his grandfather’s and father’s country. Larumba was initially inhabited by Upamburra, the ancient possum ancestor, who travelled to this desert landscape at the dawn of time in search of food and freshwater before setting up a permanent camp and establishing his tribal laws. Laws, which the artist’s grandfather and father preserved in ritual song, dance, body decoration and sandpaintings. These Corroborees give all of Larumba, including its people and Napperby Lake, a living spirit, that never dies. Larumba is depicted in this painting through a rainbow of colours and creative abstraction.

The legendary Honey Ant people lived in large colonies deep underground in Mulga country. They are said to have created soakages at Yuelumu (Mount Allan), their meeting place after travelling from Pine Hill, Papunya and Mount Doreen. From here they moved on east through Aljupa Kirritja, north of Tilmouth Well, and then south to Pine Hill station before leaving Anmatjerre country altogether for Alywerre country where they ‘finished up’ after passing through Hamilton Downs station.The honey ant is shown deep underground where the abdomens of the ‘storehouse’ ants are gradually filled with nectar. The ants are one of the few sources of sugar in the traditional desert diet.

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LOT #80 Sally (Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda) Gabori (1924 - 2015) Dibirdibi Country, 2010 197 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $24,000 - 28,000 PROVENANCE Mornington Island Art, Qld Cat No. 7585-L-SG-0312 Private Collection, NSW

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“This is where the big saltpan on my husband’s country meets the grassy plain where we collect Malbaa which is the grass we weave into string bags and nets.” artist’s statement on certification

LOT #81 Yannima Tommy Watson (1935 - 2017) Pirurpa Kalarintja (Eagle Man Dreaming), 2009 160 x 200 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $50,000 - 60,000 PROVENANCE Agathon Gallery, NSW Cat No. AGTW1010090257 Olsen Gallery, NSW Cat No. 7808 Private Collection, NSW Tommy Watson’s bold painting style reflected his ritual authority and power. He did not begin painting on canvas until late in life but from the moment his works appeared they created a storm of interest.

Depicted in this work is a major rockhole site at his birthplace, Pirupa Alka not far from Kata Juta and Uluru. During the major battle between the White Cocktoo and the Eagle, white feathers were scattered about and the landscape became indented by the entangled protagonists crashing to the ground several times. 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.

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LOT #82 Sam Tjampitjin (1930 - 2004) Artist’s Country, 1994 120 x 80 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian Linen $2,000 - 4,000 PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills, WA Cat. No. 344/94 Cooee Art Gallery, NSW Cat. No. 35 Sotheby’s Aboriginal and Oceanic Art November 2005 Private Collection, Vic EXHIBITED Coo-ee Art, Wirrimanu, Australian Aboriginal Art from Balgo Hills, W.A. Australian Book Launch and exhibition, Sydney, NSW 1994 This painting depicts many parallel sand dunes (tali) surrounding a central Warran (claypan) where water collects after rains. This is a significant meeting place and Sam was a senior custodian for this country.

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LOT #83 Inyuwa Nampitjinpa (ca. 1922 - 1999) Untitled (designs associated with the rockhole and claypan site of Pukunya), 1998 122 x 122 cm synthetic & polymer paint on linen $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. IN981120 Corporate Collection, NSW Private Collection NSW Inyuwa was a ceremonial and community leader in Kintore, where she was also the matriarch of a large extended family.

Though she painted for Papunya Tula Artists for just five years prior to her death, she played a vital role in the emergence of contemporary women’s art amongst the Pintupi. She guided her daughter Walangkura and adopted daughter Pirrmangka in their own artistic careers and painted until her death in June 1999, at which time her first solo show was on the walls of the Gabrielle Pizzi Gallery in Melbourne.

This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole and claypan site of Pukunya, located west of Umari and east of Mt Webb in Western Australia. A large group of ancestral women passed through this site during their travels further east. They gathered the edible seeds known as wirriny-wirrinypa, from the small shrub Solanum cleistogamum, which grows in profusion near the claypan. These seeds are ground into a paste which is cooked in the coals to form a damper.

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LOT #84 Susie Bootja Bootja (c1932 - 2003) Kaningarra, 2001 120 x 80 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 720/01 Private Collection, Vic Susie was a vibrant and colourful personality who was respected for her knowledge of the law and ceremony pertaining to Kurtal, a fresh water spring. As a child before contact with white people she played at the Kangingarra waterhole situated in the northern reaches of the Canning Stock Route. Susie walked in from the desert as a teenager to Tjumundora, one of the early mission sites.

Susie was one of the first women painters at Balgo Hills and was renowned for her initial dual use of Western and traditional representations of country (hills, trees, snakes) along with a lively use of bright colours. Her innovative dotted colour fields began in 1996 and until her death in 2003 her paintings were filled with her exuberant personality and joy for life.

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LOT #85 Walangkura Napanangka (c1946 - 2014) Womens Ceremony , 2005 150 x 181 cm synthetic polymer paint on belgian linen $15,000 - 20,000 PROVENANCE Mason Gallery, NT Cat No. WN0522 Coo-ee Gallery, NSW Tjala Arts, NSW Private Collection, NSW Sold with a collection of photos of Walangkura painting the work EXHIBITED Maunsell Wickes, October 2005 Cooee Art, Utopia and Beyond, September 2005 The curves through this painting represent the hill country through which an old woman, Kutungka Napanangka, travelled during her journey from the west. She visited the rockhole and underground cave site of Mantati Outstation,approximately seventy kilometres west of the Kintore Community. She then travelled further east through Ngatanga, Papunga and Yananga to Muruntji, southwest of Mount Leibig.

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LOT #86 George (Hairbrush) Tjungarrayi (1947 - ) The Claypan Site of Mamultjulkulnga, 2004 153 x 183 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $12,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No: GT0406067 Private Collection, Vic accompanied by original Papunya Tula certification George Tjungarrayi gained a growing reputation from the mid 1990s as the emerging contemporary art market showed its preference for painterliness and a degree of abstraction. This work demonstrates the interlocking key design seen on men’s traditional ceremonial objects relating to the Tingari Men’s site in his country, west of Kintore. In mythological times a large group of Tingari Men came to this site. They performed ceremonies, singing the songs and performing the dances associated with the area.

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LOT #87 Ronnie Tjampitjinpa (c1943 - ) Tingari Cycle, 1997 181 x 143 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $8,000 - 10,000 PROVENANCE Yapa Art, NT Kimberley Art, Vic Cat No. 001/97 accompanied by 9 working in progress images 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.

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.

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LOT #88 George Yapa Tjangala (c1925 - 1989) Wala Wala Tingari - Fire Dreaming, 1987 121 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $5,000 - 7,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula, N.T (source code obscured by frame) John Cope, USA Private Collection, Vic Private Collection, NSW EXHIBITION Australian Gallery, Green Street, Soho, New York City, September 1990 The Tingarri song and dance cycles are the most secret and sacred of the deeply religious rituals of the Western Desert tribes of Central Australia. In the Dreamtime a group of old men moved continuously from waterhole to waterhole throughout the Western Desert. They were accompanied by novices and initiated men who were still undergoing ceremonies of instruction at various sites.

These rituals consisted of hundreds of song and dance cycles telling of the travels and adventures of the Tingarri,their creation of sacred sites and fertility rites,the significance of body designs and decorations made of woven human hair.

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LOT #89 Rover Joolama Thomas (1926 - 1998) Mount House Station Homestead, 1995 100 x 183.5 cm natural earth pigments on canvas $25,000 - 35,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by Neil Mcleod Fine Art, Vic Kimberley Art, Vic Brian Sherman Collection, NSW Marlene Antico OAM Collection, NSW Mount House Homestead at Bow River Station lies several kilometres off the main road between Bow River Station, Turkey Creek and Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. This was where Rover spent part of his youth. The homestead is shown as the oval shape in the centre. Other features are Bow River - the white arcing area, the roads in and out of the homestead and the Jilili Swamp. The yellow ochre symbolises the surrounding desert country. This area and Rover’s experiences in and around the Mount House Homestead were very important to him. It was here that his identity and his ability to survive as a human being and as an artist were forged. The documentation indicates that as he sat painting this work he related stories of his youth and explained his compulsion in returning to this theme time and again.

The road leading towards the homestead runs between the cattle yards (yellow bird) and a dam holding water for the cattle (yellow circle). Adjacent to the dam is the ‘blackfella’ camp.

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LOT #90 Naata Nungurrayi (1932 - ) Women’s Ceremony at Marrapinti, 2002 137 x 122cm synthetic polymer on Belgian linen $20,000 - 25,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, N.T Cat.No: NN0211077 Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, June 2011 Cooee Art Gallery, NSW accompanied by original Papunya Tula certificate This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Marrapinti, to the west of the Kiwirrkura Community. A large group of senior women camped at this rockhole making the nose-bones, also known as Marrapinti, which are worn through a hole in the nose-web. These nose-bones were originally won by both men and women but are now only worn by the older generation on ceremonial occasions. The women later travelled east passing through the Kiwirrkura area.

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LOT #91 Makinti Napanangka (c. 1930 - 2011) Untitled, 2002 91 x 46 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $1,400 - 1,800 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. MN0205146 Kimberley Art, Vic Private Collection, Vic accompanied by an orgiainal Papunya Tula certificate This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Lupul, south of the Kintore community. The Peewee Dreaming is associated with this site. A group of women visited the site before continuing their travels north to Kintore. The lines in the painting represent spun hair-string which is used in the making of hair-belts worn in the ceremonies associated with the area.

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LOT #92 Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910 - 1996) Alatji Blooms, 1993 70 x 150 cm synthetic polymer on Belgian linen $25,000 - 30,000 PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, NT Cat No. 93G032 Private Collection, Germany This work was completed after good summer rains. It reveals the desert richly carpeted with flowering plants and the yam roots spreading underground. For Emily, the flowers of the yam indicate a successful summer season which will be followed by plenty of food from the yam seed and the yam itself.

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LOT #93 Queenie McKenzie (1930 - 1998) Old Texas Downs, c.1995 90 x 120 cm natural earth pigments on canvas $8,000 - 12,000 PROVENANCE Halls Creek Arts Centre, WA Private Collection, WA This painting depicts the Texas Downs Station, east of Warmun strongly connected to the artist’s early life: “I bin born Old Texas, dat called Salt Pan country. Salt water you gotta drinkim’. No more goodfella water, all salt – bitter. I bin born la dat country.”* Queenie spent her childhood and much of her adult life working as a goatherd and later as a cook in the mustering camps of Texas Downs. Cattle were mustered at the station and driven across to the abattoirs at Wyndham. The hills of Old Texas are a good place to collect the white quartz used for spearheads, “Dat white stone from the hill, they break ‘im up for spear.

Good spear dat one.” *Jennifer Joi Field, Witten in the Land, The Life Of Queenie McKenzie, Melbourne Books, 2008

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LOT #94 Jack Britten (c. 1921 - 2001) Toolookininji - Looking Out, 2004 54 x 142 cm natural earth pigments on back of a fly screen door $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Narrangunny Art Traders, WA Cat No. NAT0438 Kimberley Art, Vic Private Collection, WA signed ‘Jack’ verso Jack Britten was born and spent his childhood 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.

The site is on the Old Hann Springs cattle station where Jack once worked as a stockman. Depicted are the high ‘top country’ where cattle and wild animals grazed side by side. Also shown is the black limestone ridge (Booloo) that traverses the landscape and the caves (Nawanji) which contain the remains of ritually interred ancestors.

LOT #95 Mick Tjapaltjarri Namarari (c. 1926 - 1998) Tjungpa Tjkurrpa - Bush Tucker, 1994 147 x 122 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $8,000 - 10,000

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PROVENANCE Utopia Art, N.T Cat No. MN9931 Soul of Australia Gallery NSW Cat No. T119 Lawson Menzies, Aboriginal Art, November 2006 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by the original certificate of authenticity and a picture of Mick Namarari with the artwork

During a career that spanned almost three decades Mick Namarari became a towering presence. His variety of subjects and diversity of stylistic approaches kept him at the forefront of Western Desert painting. Geoff Bardon noted his ability as a painter from the earliest days of the movement when he ‘could often unexpectedly be found late at night working away at his meticulous and marvellous paintings’*. Much later, he was to play a quiet but decisive role in instigating the Papunya Tula art movement’s increasing ethereal minimalism of the late 1980s and 1990s and in doing so significantly fuelled the international reputation of Australian Aboriginal art, thereby earning himself an ‘incomparable place’ in Australian art history. * Johnson, Vivien. 2008. Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists. Australia. IAD Press. p191

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LOT #96 Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932 - 2002) Fire and Possum Dreaming at Napperby Lake , 1990 74 x 147 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $10,000 - 15,000 PROVENANCE Des Rogers Desert Art, Vic Cat No. DR196 Private Collection, WA By 1990 Clifford had lived away from his country for long periods of time since first painting at Papunya in the early 1970s. His birthplace was at Napperby, on Anmatjerre land. Napperby Lake or Larumba, near the border of the Tanami and Simpson Deserts, is a saltwater lake which flows along a series of claypans, occasionally disappearing beneath the surface. The Lake belongs to the Tjapaltjarri and Tjungurrayi sub sections of Anmatjerre society. A bushfire, Warlungulong, appears at the centre of the painting. The trail of the Possum Men traverses the entire canvas and holds the composition together.

Cf. Napperby Lakes,1992, in the Kelton Collection, Los Angeles (pl 61, p. 134) Warlugulong, 1976 in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (pl.15, pp52, 53 and 156 to 157), illustrated in Johnson,V. The Art of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Gordon and Breach Arts International, 1994.

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lot #97 Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi (c1928 - 1998) Tingari, 1983 122 x 92 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen $6,000 - 8,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. YY830222 Roar Galleries, Vic, June 1983 Private Collection, Vic Private Collection, Qld EXHIBITED Gabrielle Pizzi at Roar Galleries, Vic, June 1983 Fireworks Gallery, Qld, 2017 The painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Umari, situated in sandhill country, east of Mt. Webb in Western Australia.

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. They 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.

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LOT #98 Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri (1927 - 2015) Untitled Ceremony, 1984 76 x 38 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas board $1,200 - 1500 PROVENANCE Painted at Kintore, NT Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat. No.BS840656 Private Collection, NSW Maxie Tjampitjinpa was one of a group of younger Warlpiri artists, including Don Tjungurrayi, Two Bob Tjunurrayi and Michael Nelson Tjakamarra, who started painting at Papunya in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and emerged over the following decade as major painters for Papunya Tula Artists.

The current owner of this painting met him while working on a film biography of the Central Australian Aboriginal elder “Nosepeg� Tjupurrula in the mid 1980s .

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LOT #99 Ronnie Djanbardi (1925 - 1994) Lorrkon - Hollow Log Coffin, c.1975 160 x 25 cm natural earth pigments on Eucalyptus wood $3,500 - 4,500 PROVENANCE Maningrida Arts and Culture NT Private Collection, NSW EXHIBTIED Myers Aboriginal art exhibition, 1978 A member of the Gurrgoni language group of the Kulamarara clan, Ronnie Djambardi was a prominent central Arnhem Land bark painter and carver who worked for the Maningrida art centre during the early 1980s. His work was regularly shown at the government owned gallery Aboriginal Arts Australia.

Hollow log cofďŹ ns are central to the funeral ceremony practiced by the people of Arnhem Land. The hollow logs, which housed the ochred bones of the deceased person, were painted with clan designs and placed into the ground where they were left to decay naturally. The thin and delicate rarrk (crosshatching) reverberates with the power of ancestral beings who inhabit Arnhem Land.

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LOT #100 Victor Adam Purantatameri Pukimani Pole, 1979 110 x 15 cm natural earth pigments on ironwood $2,800 - 3,600 PROVENANCE Tiwi Pima Art, NT Private Collection NSW Victor Adam was a prominent Tiwi Carver during the 1970s and early 1980s. He participated in the 1979 Australian Museum commission of a large group of tutini poles and later in 1984 created a number of tutini as part of the installation created for the National Gallery of Australia. He was a contemporary of the renowned Tiwi carvers, Micky Geranium, Paddy Henry, Declan Apuatimi, Paddy Freddy, Holder Adams, Mani Luki and Deaf Tommy Mungutopi. He is noted for naturalistic poles and carved Tokampini birds that were stylistically unique and readily identifiable as his own.

Cf. Isaacs J, Tiwi Art/History/Culture, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne 2012 pp101,216 and 218

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LOT #101 Lorna Napanangka Ward (1961 - ) Marrapinti, 2003 122 x 122 cm synthetic polymer on Belgian linen $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, NT Cat No. LN0306052 Tjala Aboriginal Art, Sydney, NSW Cooee Aboriginal Art, Sydney, NSW Private Collection NSW accompanied by original Papunya Tula certificate This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Marrapinti, to the west of the Kiwirrkura 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 each section depicts ancestral activities that were part of the formation of the present day environment.

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LOT #102 Pollard Ngoia Napaljarri (c1945 - ) Swamp Near Nyrrupi, 2005 120 x 150 cm synthetic polymer paint on Belgian Linen $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Watiyawanu Artists Corporation, NT Cat No.10-751 Neil Murphy Indigenous Art, NSW Cat No. NJM05/0281 Tjala Aboriginal Art, Sydney, NSW Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW Ngoia Napaljarri Pollard paints her father’s country. This country is sacred Warlpiri territory associated with narratives relating to ‘water snake’. The oval shapes in her paintings are iconographic representations of the swamps and lakes near Nyruppi north west of Mt. Liebig.

In her paintings Ngoia depicts the wet and dry characteristics of Nyruppi, a region charged with the spiritual presence of a ‘water snake’ which lives beneath the surface. Ngoia describes this terrain as being dangerous. This area is currently unoccupied Warlpiri land where her father hunted prior to his encounter with white people. Ngoia has special custodianship responsibilities over this area.

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LOT #103 Justin Hodgson (1947 - ) Argormirri - Small Perch , 2005 120 x 120 cm synthetic polymer paint on canvas $4,000 - 6,000 PROVENANCE Karen Brown Gallery, NT Cat No. KB2367 Tjala Aboriginal Art, NSW Cooee Aboriginal Art, NSW Private Collection NSW accompanied by original Karen Brown Gallery certificate The artists of Peppimenarti are known for paintings which reference the weave of syaw or fish-nets, traditionally woven by women. The weaving method of the syaw is the same as the stitch used in weaving warragarri (dilly bags), except bigger. The pinbin vine grows near the river and is stripped into fibres that are then woven onto the net. The syaw is used to catch fish, prawn and other edible living creatures in the creeks and rivers.

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LOT #104 Eunice Napanangka Jack (1940 - ) Hair String, 2004 92 x 122 cm synthetic polymer on Belgian linen $3,500 - 4,500 PROVENANCE Ikuntji Art Centre, Haasts Bluff, NT Cat No. IK04EJ132 Boutwell Draper Gallery, NSW Tjala Aboriginal Art, Sydney, NSW Private Collection NSW accompanied by a certificate from the Ikunki art centre Eunice was born in 1940 at Lupul in the Sir Frederick Ranges in Western Australia. 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 when she was a young child.

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 a hunter, dancer and senior custodian of traditional law.

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LOT #105 Lin Onus (1948 - 1996) Dislocation Yellow, 2000 56 x 35 cm (image) 76 56 x cm (paper) Limited edition screenprint Edn No.15/20 $1,000 - 1,500 PROVENANCE Commissioned by the Estate of Lin Onus.

Signed Onus (Tiriki) and bears Lin Onus Estate stamp lower RHS This screenprint was based on an original linocut by the artist created in 1986.

LOT #106 Lin Onus (1948 - 1996) Rocks & Ripples/Splash (Diptych) 60 x 40 cm (image each) 76 x 56 cm (paper each) Experimental screenprints (not editioned) $2,000 - 3,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by the Estate of Lin Onus.

Each work signed Onus (Tiriki) and bears Lin Onus Estate stamp lower right Commissioned by the Estate of Lin Onus after original linocuts created by the artist in 1986. Approximately 8 prints of these two images were created, however each varies in colour and is therefore unique.

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LOT #107 Artists from Balgo Hills, Lajamanu and Yuendumu Yilpinji, Love Magic Ceremony, folio of 15 prints, 2003 edition 6/99 56 x 76 cm each (paper size - 15 in total) $8,000 - 12000 ARTISTS Abie Jangala, Bai Bai Napangarti, Unbena Nampitjin, Helicopter Tjungurrayi, Lilly Hagraves Nungurrayi, Liddy Nelson Nakamarra, Lucy Yukenbarri Napanaggka, Paddy Simms Japaljarri, Paddy Stewart Japaljarri, Ronnie Lawson Jakamarra, Rosie Tasmain Napurrula, Susie Bootja Bootja Napangarti, Samson Martin Japaljarri, Teddy Morrison Jupurrula and Uni Martin Nampitjinpa.

PROVENANCE Commissioned and Published by the Australian Art Print Network Print Makers: Basil Hall Editions, NT Editions Tremblay, Qld Published by the Australian Art Print Network, NSW A folio of 15 limited edition prints on paper Edn Nos. 6/99 in a buckram bound box with cover sheet EXHIBITED Australian Museum NSW, Australia’s Outback Gallery NSW, Darwin Entertainment Centre Gallery NT, Thornquest Gallery Qld, Damien Minton Gallery NSW, Flinders University City Gallery SA, Stephanie Burns Fine Art ACT, Art Mob Tas, Japingka Gallery WA, Fire-Works Gallery Qld Alcheringa Gallery Canada, Rebecca Hossack Gallery UK,Fisketorvet Denmark,The Orangery Sweden, Bruun’s Galleri Aarhus Denmark, Galerie Dad France Australian Embassy, France, Highpoint Centre USA, Kluge Rhue Collection USA This suite of prints was produced after extensive workshops held in Yuendumu, Lajamanu and Balgo Hills amongst Warlpiri arists who were asked to explore the theme of Love Magic. Many individual artists paint their country and Dreamings but it is unusual for a group of artists to express a common theme such as this.

The prints in this portfolio were selected from a body of 30 works that comprised the exhibition, Yilpinji Love Magic & Ceremony which toured nationally and internationally Folio accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue detailing the artists and the stories associated with each print and cross-referencing the images with the social and cultural issues they raise.

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LOT #108 Artist Unknown Mendi Valley Fighting Shield, mid 20th Century 136 x 40 x 3 cm natural earth pigment on wood $2,500 - 3,500 PROVENANCE New Guinea Primitive Arts, NSW Private Collection NSW Used by warriors in the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea in battle; the red figure is most probably an ancestor figure, who will help protect the warrior. There are several layers of paint, indicating the shield may have had several traditional owners.

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LOT #109 Artist Unknown Fighting Shield - Henganofi region, early to mid 20th Century 148 x 54 x 4 cm natural earth pigment, incised wood, cane binding $3,000 - 4,000 PROVENANCE New Guinea Primitive Arts, NSW Private Collection NSW The shield, from the Eastern Highlands, Papua New Guinea is covered in fine engraved chevron motifs. Painted over is a Spirit Snake, considered one of the original creation spirits. The back has an attached woven string bag as a cache for arrows.

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LOT #110 Artist Unknown Gope Board, Papuan Gulf, PNG, ealy to mid 20th Century 94 x 21 x 2 cm (97 cm height on stand) earth pigment on wood, mounted on steel base $2,000 - 3,000 PROVENANCE Richard Aldridge Collection, WA Private Collection, NSW Gope ancestor boards with a raised nose and flange at the base are from the eastern regions of the Papuan Gulf and represent a mythological clan ancestor. These boards were kept in the men’s house as a constant reminder of genealogical lineage. Those from the east are rarer than those from the central and western regions of the Papuan Gulf.

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LOT #111 Artist Unknown A Large Woven Helmut Baba Mask, mid 20th Century 66 x 39 x 23 cm coiled rattan, dye and earth pigment, shell and Cassowary feathers $800 - 1,200 PROVENANCE New Guinea Primitive Arts, NSW Private Collection NSW This is a most unusual double faced Baba from the Abelam people in the East Sepik Province on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. These ‘Baba’ masks appeared as organisers and guardians at the initiations of young boys and at sacred ceremonies and harvest festivals in the yam root ritual. The Baba represents a bird-like spirit and is worn by a male dancer during ceremony, with his body completely covered in a long grass skirt.

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