Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Bears artist name and Warlayirti catalogue No. 27/90 on the reverse

Painted at Wirrimanu (Balgo Hills), Western Australia for Warlayirti Artists in January 190
Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne
Sotheby’s, Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, June 28, 1999, lot. No.94
The Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands

Unframed and mounted on a professional stretcher. Good order overall with no repairs or restoration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Cf. Christine Watson ‘Eubena Nampitjin & Wimmitji Tjapangarti’ in Anne Marie Brody (ed.) Stories; Eleven Aboriginal Artists, Craftsman House, Melbourne, 1997, Pp.58-60 for three related paintings by the artists executed in 1990-1991.

Wimmitji Tjapangarti was the doyen of the artists of the community of Balgo Hills in the Tanami Desert when they entered the public art world in the late 1980s. A deeply traditional man, until 1959 he had preferred to live away from the mission at Balgo where he established himself as an influential ceremonial and cultural leader. At Balgo, amongst his other accomplishments, he worked on an En🃏﷽glish dictionary of his Kukatja language, and assisted the eminent Australian anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt in their researches into Kukatja culture.

Bringing decades of experience of painting in ritual contexts to bear in his acrylic paintings, Wimmitji preferred to use a traditional palette and often would apply paint with his fingers, in imitation of a method of painting the body with ancestral designs for ceremony. The recurring subjects of Wimmitji’s paintings are the ancestral beings know as Tingari, usually described as two major beings in various guises who gave desert peoples, culture, law and language as they travelled across a landscape of stony plains, sand dunes and salt lakes. Pictorial designs associated with the Tingari feature grid-like matrices and concentric circles that indicate the presence of life sustaining freshwater holes in the parched landscape.

WC