ABIE JUMBYINMBA TJANGALA

Abie Jangala was never a prolific artist due to the slow and deliberate way in which he worked and circumstances that made painting difficult in Lajamanu during his lifetime. His finest paintings are in a number of important collections and, those that remain in private hands, are only ever likely to appear on very rare occasions.

His works were first collected by Robert Holmes a Court and the National Gallery of Victoria in 1989 and by the time he passed away in 2002 he had held three solo exhibitions at Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney. The first of these was held in 1993, the year that his work first appeared on the secondary market. By 2001, the year after his current record price was set, only six works had been offered of which five had sold. And while 2002 was not a good year with all three of those offered failing to sell, in 2004, the next year when his works appeared, all nine of those offered were successful for a total value of $45,000. This was the year in which Lawson~Menzies re-emerged to hold specialist Aboriginal art sales and Coo-ee Gallery’s involvement in Abie’s career was the reason that so many good works appeared. However, none of his finest works have been offered for sale to date. Apart from his record holding work, the best of those that have been offered have suffered mixed fortunes.

His highest price was for Ngapa Tjukurrpa 1993 in which three symbols representing rainbows are balanced between two sets of parallel lines representing clouds. The work shows the artist’s fine dotted background in all of its alluring eccentricity. It achieved $13,800 when offered with a presale estimate of $8,000-12,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2000 (Lot 38).

The artist, who was still alive at that time, was no longer capable of painting works of this fine detail, yet his major works sold for around $12,000 when available in his gallery. Abie’s second highest record was for a painting misnamed Frog, Rain and Billabong 1994, which sold for $12,000 at Sotheby’s in October 2006 (Lot 107). Measuring 187 x 120 cm it carried an estimate of $10,000-15,000 having failed to sell when estimated at $30,000-40,000 at Sotheby’s 18 months earlier.

Indeed, the fact that many of Jangala’s works find buyers only when making a second appearance at auction appears to be a reoccurring pattern. Brock Brock-Frog Dreaming offered at Shapiro Auctioneers in May 2002 (Lot 256) and Rainbow 1994, offered at Sotheby’s in November 2005 (Lot 112) both failed the first time around, yet when they reappeared at Lawson Menzies in November 2004 and November 2006 respectively, they became what are now the artist’s eighth and seventh highest records at $7,200 and $9,600. And a small work, Women-Karnta 1997 failed the first time around at Sotheby’s in November 2005 (Lot 113) but later reached $2,160 at Lawson~Menzies in November 2006 (Lot 280). Perhaps this demonstrates the fickleness of the secondary market toward major artists from more obscure regions such as Lajamanu. Eventually, however, works of real quality find a home with discerning collectors following further exposure.

Abie Jangala is a most important artist whose best works have yet to surface at sale. When they do, I would expect them to more than double his current record. They are rare, highly distinctive and suit a contemporary aesthetic. His late career works, though less accomplished, manage a spare simplicity evocative of the artist’s age and stature, as he was about to pass his ceremonial responsibilities on to the next generation of keepers of the great Warlpiri Rain Dreamings.