His paintings show superlative skill, incredible inventiveness of form and are visually spectacular.Clifford's work is contemporary but essentially Aboriginal in inspiration. [12] As of 2016, the work is on display in the National Gallery. Contact with Albrecht had an ongoing impact on Possum and his family. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Australia Born: Napperby, Northern Territory, Australia circa 1932 Died: Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia 21 Jun 2002 Language group: Anmatyerr, Central Desert region Biography Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was born on Napperby Station about 200 kilometres north-west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Pre-auction, the work was expected to make art history as the most expensive Aboriginal canvas at auction. As an artist who frequently incorporates celestial-like symbols and motifs in his work, Johnson was drawn to the meditative and intricate quality of dotting and sought permission from the Papunya artists to employ it. [17], Johnson's analysis of the painting emphasises the relationship between the representation of geographical sites in the Yuendumu region and the dreaming stories associated with those sites. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri is arguably the most famous male Central Western Desert artist, who from 1971 until his death in 2002 dominated the Aboriginal art scene. His career as an artist began in the 1950's when he carved snakes and goannas. In 1976 a BBC documentary crew traveled deep into Australias Northern Territory to watch Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and his brother Tim Leura paint a masterpiece. It became the first 'dot' painting to enter a major public art collection. [14][notes 2] Art critic Benjamin Genocchio has referred to the 1977 work as also being by the brothers;[13] however, the National Gallery of Australia credits it solely to Clifford Possum. When Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri joined this group of 'dot and circle' painters early in 1972 he immediately distinguished himself as one of its most talented members and went on to create some of the largest and most complex paintings ever produced". [4] The youngest was Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, encouraged by his older brother Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri. Through his remarkable paintings, Clifford Possums unique images and stories will endure. In 2002 Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for service as a contributor to and pioneer of the development of the Western Desert art movement, and to the Indigenous community through interpretation of ancient traditions and cultural values., Vivien Johnson in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014, Open daily Sale Date: October 23, 2021. This heightened his appreciation of the idea that a painting might function as a map, and as a unified embodiment of place, identity and spirituality. [3], Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri died in Alice Springs on the day he was scheduled to be invested with the Order of Australia for his contributions to art and to the Indigenous community. International Committee of the Fourth International. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons. The artwork he created, called Warlugulong, was the largest the Papunya artists had ever attempted, and combined nine events and locations of the Dreamingthe mythic cosmology of the Aboriginal cultures. The artist's works have gone up for sale at public auction 402 times, mostly in the Painting category. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (c.1932-2002) was one of the truly visionary Australian artists of the twentieth century. Each artwork featured an intricately detailed surface of dots and lines in rich reds and ochres. He was of the Peltharr skin. (270 x 128 cm.) Warlugulong 1976 and several paintings by Aboriginal artists was exhibited at the inaugural Australian Perspecta at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1981, the first time Aborigines had been included in a general survey of Australian contemporary work. Posthumously, Tjapaltjarri's works are drawing increasing attention. Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them. Diversity in the Desert. Clifford Possum emerged as one of the leaders in this school of painting, which has come to be called the Western Desert Art Movement. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Clifford Tilmouth Colin Bird Colleen Wallace Nungari Connie Nakamarra Fisher Corinne Nampijinpa Ryan Cornelius Jungarrayi Spencer Cowboy Louie Pwerle D Dadu Gorey Nungarrayi Danny Japaljarri France David Angus Jungala Deborah Napaljarri Wayne Debra Nangala McDonald Debra Young Nakamarra Delores Furber Napaltjarri Flinders University Art Museum Collection. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Anmatyerr people (1932-2002), Warlugulong 1977. Some of the many other famous Aboriginal artists who used dot art styles include . Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was born c. 1932 to Tjatjiti Tjungurrayai and Long Rose Nangala in Tjuirri, an area north-west of Alice Springs also known as Napperby Station. The exhibition will include works of art from the NPG Canberra's permanent collection with some inward loans and aims to highlight the achievements of notable Australians. Find an AIE artist After learning how to muster and brand cattle, he became a stockman at Hamilton Downs and then head stockman at Narwietooma station. Possum received no formal education but knew six Aboriginal languages and a little English. He is one of Australia's most distinguished and best-selling painters of the late twentieth century. [notes 1] Owned for many years by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the work was sold by art dealer Hank Ebes on 24 July 2007, setting a record price for a contemporary Indigenous Australian art work bought at auction when it was 202-647-4000 | TTY:1-800-877-8339 (FRS) The auction house trading the work expected it to fetch around $5,000 and did not make a feature of it in the catalogue, but dealers including Hank Ebes, the successful bidder, recognised the painting's significance and it sold for $36,000 plus commission. This was the last Aboriginal settlement built under the Menzies Liberal governments racist assimilation policy. Papunya Tula Artists Ltd. was formed in 1972. WARLUGULONG 1977. Throughout the work, Upambura the Possum Man's footsteps follow the wandering lines that give the painting its overall structure. He rapidly distinguished himself as one of the companys most accomplished and inventive artists, an exponent of striking, multi-layered and meticulously rendered visual effects. The other artists working with him took his lead and removed any elements of European Art from their work. For a time he experimented with complex striping, linked dotting or overlapping the background with a patching pattern. His older brother Cassidy Possum Tjapaltjarri was a traditionalist who barely gone outside of the Yuelamu community and was one of most respected elder till his passing in 2006, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was the most famous of the contemporary artists who lived around Papunya, in the Northern Territory's Western Desert area, when the acrylic painting style (known popularly as "dot art") was initiated. In contrast to Namatjiras realistic watercolours, Bardon supplied them acrylic paint and discouraged references to Western images. Chicago, Los Angeles and St Louis 1988, 'Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Paintings 1973-1986', retrospective exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; 1990 'l'ete . [citation needed]. In 1928 police shot and killed nearly 100 Aborigines at the infamous Coniston massacre. His brother was Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, whose artwork appeared on another stamp. They been using the dancing boards, spear, boomerang all painted. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s his paintings featured in numerous group shows and his works were acquired for collections in Australia and overseas. It is named after the place west of Yuendumu where the fire began, indicated by the concentric circles at the centre of the glowing fire-burst, which conveys the explosive nature of the fire. From our early days, before European people came up. Human footprints include a set left by dancing women from a place called Aileron; another shows a family group travelling to a place called Ngama, and a third trail is that of a Tjungurrayi man, which lead to his skeleton, representing his death after committing the crime of trying to steal sacred items. [18] Described as "epic"[19] and "sprawling",[20] Genocchio said of it that is "a work of real national significance [and] one of the most important 20th-century Australian paintings". In 1988, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London organised a retrospective it was Tjapaltjarris first solo exhibition and the first time an Australian Aboriginal artist had been honoured in this way by the international art world. [23] The bank sold it by auction in 1996. In June he received the Order of Australia for his pioneering work in the development of the Western Desert Art movement, and was to be officially invested with the award on the day he died. Clifford developed his own unique style that included secular non-traditional motifs. What is now referred to as the Papunya movement began in 1971, when the men started transferring their designs from the body and the ground onto panels of masonite and other moveable surfaces. His obituaries, which appeared in newspapers around the world, generally referred to him as Clifford Possum and gave his age as about 70. 1977. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian artist born in 1932. By the mid-1970s he was chairman of the company and had emerged as one of its most inventive artists. Clifford Possum was born in 1932 on Napperby Station. Go to Artist page. Watch David Norths remarks commemorating 25 years of the World Socialist Web Site and donate today. After the death of his father, his mother married Gwoya Jungarai who was the first named Aboriginal person to appear on an Australian stamp and was known as 'One Pound Jimmy'. But a year later his brother Tim died, deeply affecting Possum and ending many years of a close artistic collaboration. [13] Clifford Possum would often collaborate with other artists, particularly his brother Tim Leura, and the brothers together created the 1976 work of the same name. His mother, Long Rose Nangala and father, Tjatjiti Tjungurrayi, were members of the Anmatyerre tribal group living on ancestral lands near Napperby cattle station. These included a number of paintings depicting Warlugulong, the Bushfire Dreaming story relating to his mother's birthplace. Numerous Indigenous Australians are noted for their participation in, and contributions to, the Visual arts of Australia and abroad. His work is featured in many of the main galleries and collections around Australia and internationally. He made a significant impact in 1971 and remained inarguably a noteworthy artist even after his death in 2002. His working life began at an early age on the Hamilton Downs cattle stationthe very industry that had driven his family from the land. Posthumously, Tjapaltjarri's works are drawing increasing attention. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was the most famous of the contemporary artists who lived around Papunya, in the Northern Territory's Western Desert area, when the acrylic painting style (known popularly as "dot art") was initiated. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present. Often these techniques would be carefully interwoven into an integrated composition, overlaid with more dots to producing an illusion of changing spatial depth. A founding member of Papunya Tula Artists cooperative, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was one of the most important artists of the movement and among its most innovative practitioners. The full text of the article is here , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Possum_Tjapaltjarri, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. When it held an exhibition of his work in 2004, the Art Gallery of New South Wales described his artistic background: He was an expert wood-carver and took up painting long before the emergence of the Papunya Tula School in the early 1970s. [11], Created in synthetic polymer paint on canvas,[12] and a substantial 2 by 3.3 metres (6.6ft 10.8ft) in size, the work's title is taken from a location roughly 300 kilometres (190mi) "northwest of Alice Springs associated with a powerful desert dreaming". The painting portrays the results of a fire, caused by Lungkata to punish his two sons who did not share with their father the kangaroo they had caught. 1932 c. - 2002 redrock gallery is honoured and proud to presnt the great late Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri arguably the most famous male Central Western Desert artist, who from 1971 until his death in 2002 dominated the Aboriginal art scene. This laid the foundation for traditional Aboriginal Iconography to be placed on canvas. The omission led scholar Vivien Johnson to conclude that Warlugulong (1977) portrays a narrower geographic area than the preceding work. [12], When the Australian government in 2009 introduced a resale royalty scheme, the sale history of Warlugulong was frequently used to argue in favour of the scheme, designed to ensure that artists and their families continued to benefit from the appreciating value of old works.[18][26][27]. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. His first opportunity to paint came when one of Albert Namatjira's sons gave him acrylic paints and the master began his work. Video excerpt from the ABC documentary 'The Exhibitionists' on First Nations Australian female artist Karla Dickens, Wiradjuri people. The unwanted publicity and other pressures had a debilitating impact on Possum and he largely withdrew from the art scene. You have Javascript disabled. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (cca. Napperby Station, NT The focal point of that show was Napperby Death Spirit Dreaming (1980), a large collaborative painting by Possum and Leura. (age70in2002), Basil P. Bressler (48portraits supported). List of all 145 artworks by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Description. [17] It was purchased for A$1,200 by the Commonwealth Bank, which hung it in a bank training centre cafeteria on the Mornington Peninsula. One of the extraordinary qualities of Clifford's work and other Western Desert artists is that they are a visual writing and speak to the Aboriginal as books do to Europeans.When asked why he became an Artist, he answered,"That Dreaming been all the time. Consequently, Johnson's portrait of Tjapaltjarri includes symbols, objects and vignettes from Tjapaltjarri's life in a composition that evokes the sitter's presence and biography as well as his inner world and a deep cultural knowledge unconstrained by time. A co-founder of the audacious Papunya Tula style and the first Aboriginal painter to be critically acclaimed by art patrons in Europe and North America, Clifford Possums life bore all the scars of poverty and racist oppression confronting Aborigines in central Australia in the 20th century. Close product . [4] He was buried at Yuelamu, which had been the preference of his community and daughters, several weeks after his death.[5]. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri died in Alice Springs on the day he was scheduled to be invested with the Order of Australia for his contributions to art and to the Indigenous community. Primary Marketplace ( 2022 ): Australia Clifford Possum TJAPALTJARRI is an artist born in Australia c.1932 and deceased in 2002. [9], This work excludes elements of several dreamings associated with country further south, which had been included in the painting created by Clifford Possum and his brother a year earlier. Bears artist's name and title on Art Gallery of South Australia, Clifford Possum Tjapalatjarri Retrospective Tour label, on the protective foam core backing attached to the reverse of stretcher. At last, The Art of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri presents a comprehensive account of the work of this extraordinary artist. Clifford Possum was the first recognised star of the Western Desert art and one of Australia's most distinguished painters of the late twentieth century. Although married and father to Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi and Michelle Possum Nungurrayi, Clifford Possum dedicated his time to creating extraordinary three-dimensional artworks widening the circles of knowledge relating to Anmatyerre history, Aboriginal and national history. They been using ochres all the colours from the rock. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO (c. 19322002) was a founding member of the artists cooperative established at Papunya in the early 1970s and one of the most renowned practitioners within the Western Desert art movement. Their works were mostly Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) stories, representing the creation of significant sites and landforms by ancestral beings along their paths of travel through traditional lands. Follow us on our social channels and learn about what AIE artists and their art are showcasing worldwide. Similar to many Aboriginal artists of this time, he began his working career as a stockman on various cattle stations established on his ancestral country and later was employed in the construction of the Papunya settlement. While white settlers and government officials had driven tens of thousands of Aborigines from Australias richest farming land during the 19th century, the dispossession of central Australian Aborigines did not occur until the early 1900s and continued during the early years of Possums life. Warlugulong was Tjapaltjarris first monumental canvas, and became the template for a series of large-scale paintings made through the late 1970s. Born in a creek bed on Napperby cattle station, Clifford Possum worked from late boyhood as a stockman. TheCompanion is available to buy online and in the Portrait Gallery Store. By the 1970's he was one of the most accomplished carvers in Central Australia. from Lawsons on February 4, 0123 12:00 PM AEDT. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO Born: c.1932; Napperby, Australia Died: June 21, 2002; Alice Springs / Stuart, Australia Nationality: Australian Art Movement: Native Art Painting School: Papunya Tula Field: painting Family and Relatives: Michelle Possum Nungurrayi, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi There was legal controversy surrounding his burial, as his surviving family and community maintained he wished to be buried in a location different from that specified in his will. Geoffrey Bardon came to Papunya in the early 1970s and encouraged the Aboriginal people to put their dreaming . Carved snake (view from behind), 1973, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, pigment on wood, 71 x 40 x 15 cm. Additional documents supplied by Central Australian . In doing so Clifford, as well as the other artists involved with the Papunya Tula Movement, helped to develop the true definition of Aboriginal Art, an art revolving around a culture, The Jukurrpa.In some of his stories Clifford attempts to give a visual impression of sunlight, cloud, shadow and earth to denote specific times of the day. Possum Tjapaltjarri contributed to the Indigenous Australian Art movement and died on June 21, 2002. He worked extensively as a stockman on the cattle stations in and around his traditional country. That Dreaming carry on. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO (1932 21 June 2002) was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists. 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