Lot 61

This work is in excellent condition. There is minor white pigment present upper right and upper left edge (possibly foreign).
(LEONARD JOEL DELIVERY SIZE: LARGE)


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Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs (accompanied by a certificate of authenticity)
Utopia Art, Sydney (label verso)
The Elizabeth Jones Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Mossgreen Auctions, Melbourne, 14 August 2007, lot 17
Private collection, Sydney

Desert Painters of Australia: Two Generations, Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, 24 September – 7 November 2020

Makinti Napanangka was born at Mangarri, near Kintore, between Northern Territory and Western Australia. She first started painting at Haasts Bluff in the mid-1990s during the later stages of her life, but only the start of a very prolific and significant painting career.

Napanangka was one of the many significant Pintupi women who worked on the collaborative Haasts Bluff/Kintore women's painting project - a series of works mostly completed in 1994 that signified the start of the Pintupi women's recognition within Western Desert art. Previously, these significant female artists had predominantly worked on paintings with their husbands and male relatives, but now were free to develop their own individual artistic styles and reputations.

By the early 2000s, Makinti was living in Kintore as one of the most senior woman painters at Papunya Tula Artists. Following on from a cataract operation, it was here that her style developed into the sweeping arcs and lines in vivid hues that she is now recognised for. Her works commemorate women's performative and ritual customs, especially the nyimparra dances featuring the hand-spun string skirts made of human hair. Her expressive lines are reminiscent of the movement of the skirts and lines created in the earth during performance.

In 2011, Makinti Napanangka was posthumously recognised when she was named a Member of the Order of Australia for her service to the arts and women painters of Western Desert Art. Most recently, Gagosian gallery exhibited Two Generations: Desert Painters of Australia at their renowned Hong Kong gallery, featuring not just the work of Makinti Napanangka but also this specific painting as a key example of Makinti's significant place within the artists of the Western Desert.

Olivia Fuller
Head of Art