Men's Ceremony at Pinari, 1998

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

91 x 61 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Hammer $3,600

Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. PP 9808224 Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD7245 Private Collection, Vic Accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd and the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings
Artwork story: Pinari is a rockhole site north of Kintore. The Papunya Tula Artists documentation for this work records that in ancestral times a large group of Tingari Men travelled from the west, passing through Tarkul and Malparingya before arriving at Pinari, a site also associated with the Tjikaka, the Duck Dreaming. Since events of the Tingari Cycle are of a sacred nature, no further detail was given. The composition has the authority of a man who had been painting this country for more than two decades. Fourteen concentric circle sites are arranged across a stark black ground, each rendered in dense, textured white and connected to its neighbours by thick parallel lines that map the route of the Tingari. The dotting throughout is impastoed and physical, built up from the surface rather than laid flat. There is nothing tentative here: it is the work of a senior custodian who knew exactly what he was painting and how much to show. Pinta Pinta was born at Yumari in the Great Sandy Desert in the late 1920s and was among the last Pintupi groups to walk in from the desert, arriving at Haasts Bluff in the 1950s. He began painting at Papunya in the early 1970s and moved to Kintore when it was established in 1981, later setting up an outstation at Winparrku, close to his traditional lands. In 1984, while camped at Winparrku with his son Matthew, he encountered the family group that came to be known as the Pintupi Nine, among the last people in Australia to make first contact with non-Aboriginal society. This canvas, made the year before his death, is among the final works of a founding figure of the Western Desert art movement.

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Sale 3 · Lot 57

Pinta Pinta Tjapanangka

c.1928 – 1999

Region: Western Desert
Community: Kintore (Walungurru)
Language group: Pintupi

Men's Ceremony at Pinari, 1998

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

91 x 61 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Hammer $3,600

Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. PP 9808224 Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD7245 Private Collection, Vic Accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd and the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings
Artwork story: Pinari is a rockhole site north of Kintore. The Papunya Tula Artists documentation for this work records that in ancestral times a large group of Tingari Men travelled from the west, passing through Tarkul and Malparingya before arriving at Pinari, a site also associated with the Tjikaka, the Duck Dreaming. Since events of the Tingari Cycle are of a sacred nature, no further detail was given. The composition has the authority of a man who had been painting this country for more than two decades. Fourteen concentric circle sites are arranged across a stark black ground, each rendered in dense, textured white and connected to its neighbours by thick parallel lines that map the route of the Tingari. The dotting throughout is impastoed and physical, built up from the surface rather than laid flat. There is nothing tentative here: it is the work of a senior custodian who knew exactly what he was painting and how much to show. Pinta Pinta was born at Yumari in the Great Sandy Desert in the late 1920s and was among the last Pintupi groups to walk in from the desert, arriving at Haasts Bluff in the 1950s. He began painting at Papunya in the early 1970s and moved to Kintore when it was established in 1981, later setting up an outstation at Winparrku, close to his traditional lands. In 1984, while camped at Winparrku with his son Matthew, he encountered the family group that came to be known as the Pintupi Nine, among the last people in Australia to make first contact with non-Aboriginal society. This canvas, made the year before his death, is among the final works of a founding figure of the Western Desert art movement.