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lote/old mick wallankarri tjakamarra painting men s site 1978 pYnkW66 629576350 / En venta

lote/old mick wallankarri tjakamarra painting men s site 1978 pYnkW66 629576350

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lote/old mick wallankarri tjakamarra painting men s site 1978 pYnkW66 629576350

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Old Mick Wallankarri Tjakamarra Painting "Men's Site" (1978)

Australia, Aboriginal, ca. 1970 - 1990 CE. Painting in acrylic on cardboard by artist Old Mick Tjakamarra. A vivid field of terracotta, umber, olive, and white dots radiates from a commanding concentric roundel, the surface animated by crescent trails and distinctive U-motifs that articulate Western Desert iconography. The composition employs the finely stippled technique developed at Papunya to encode Tjukurrpa narratives while mapping Country; the central roundel likely denotes a waterhole or meeting place, with U-shapes perhaps indicating seated figures and the sinuous arcs suggesting travel lines or sandhills. The visual language and palette relate closely to early Papunya Tula painting. The work is signed on verso Old Mick Tjakamarra, with comparable examples in the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Size: 15.5" W x 12" H (39.4 cm W x 30.5 cm H) The title is frank in its assertion of restricted ceremonial content. Men's sites in the Western Desert tradition are sacred locations accessible only to initiated men, their associated Dreaming stories, songs, and visual representations carrying layers of esoteric meaning that the uninitiated viewer encounters only at the outermost surface. That Old Mick chose to commit such imagery to board at all reflects the considered decision made by senior Papunya elders in the early 1970s to allow certain ceremonial knowledge to enter a portable and public medium, a negotiation between cultural preservation and the realities of a rapidly changing world. As both a ceremonial leader and one of the movement's senior authorities, Mick was uniquely positioned to make that judgment, and his paintings carry the weight of that responsibility in every mark. About the artist: Old Mick Wallankarri Tjakamarra (also known as Squeaky Mick or Shaky Mick, and variously spelled Walangkari or Walandari; skin name also rendered Jagamara, Jakamara, or Djakamara) was born around 1910 at Watikipinrri, west of Central Mount Wedge, in the Western Desert of Central Australia. Of mixed tribal background, he is thought to have been among the last surviving Kukatja of the Central Desert region. He spent his early years as a traditional nomadic hunter and gatherer before working on cattle stations at Glen Helen and Narwietooma in the 1950s, resettling at Papunya in the late 1960s where his command of English made him a valued negotiator and mediator within the community. When schoolteacher Geoff Bardon arrived at Papunya in 1971 and proposed the now-legendary Honey Ant Dreaming mural, it was Old Mick, alongside Old Walter Tjampitjinpa, who gave permission for sacred ceremonial designs to be rendered in a public and permanent medium, a decision of profound consequence for the history of Australian art. He was a senior ceremonial leader and one of the founding members of the Papunya Tula Artists painting group, providing younger artists with an irreplaceable fund of traditional knowledge and story. According to Bardon, Mick painted his sacred stories while singing the songlines they depicted, sometimes working with his fingers, the act carrying the heightened ritual energy of ceremonial performance. His paintings are topographically direct and spiritually uncompromising rather than technically refined, their power residing in the authenticity of the knowledge they encode. His dots cluster and shift direction around the components of a story; his line work is frank and unpolished. His early works are small, many containing secret imagery intended only for initiated men. His "Old Man's Dreaming of Death" (1971), now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, is among the most significant works of the foundational Papunya period. His Papunya works were the first by any artist in the movement to enter the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, and were featured in the Asia Society's landmark touring exhibition "Dreamings: Art of Aboriginal Australia" (1988-89). By the early 1980s, failing eyesight and declining health ended his painting career, though he continued to guide second-wave artists including Maxie Tjampitjinpa and Don Tjungurrayi. The provenance letter accompanying the present work, authored by collector and Papunya Tula collaborator Tim Johnson (May 2024), confirms the attribution on the basis of stylistic analysis and firsthand knowledge of the painting's acquisition history, noting the distinctive mushroom brown palette, the single circle with white dot motif, and the careful early dot work consistent with mid-1970s production. Publication: Accompanied by a letter from Tim Johnson, director at the Papunya Tula Artists Stockroom, Northern Territory, Australia. Another Old Mick Wallankarri Tjakamarra painting of slightly smaller scale titled "Possum Looking For Food In The Sandhills" hammered 36,000 AUD at Sotheby's Melbourne on July 31, 2006. Provenance: private Tualatin, Oregon, USA collection, acquired August 2025; ex-Newstead Art Auctions, New South Wales, Australia; ex-Tim Johnson, Australia, acquired in 1981; ex-Andrew Crocker, director at the Papunya Tula Artists Stockroom, Northern Territory, Australia Condition: In excellent overall condition. Mounted in custom frame; minor wear to frame which does not affect painting. Signed on verso with suspension wire for display. Accompanied by a letter from Tim Johnson, director at the Papunya Tula Artists Stockroom, Northern Territory, Australia.

Estimación:€1,735.76

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