Eileen Napaltjarri (born 1956) is a

Pintupi The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into the ...

-speaking

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Eileen Napaltjarri, also known as Anyima Napaltjarri, began painting for

Papunya Tula Papunya Tula, registered as Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 in Papunya, Northern Territory, owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative ...

artists' cooperative in 1996. She was named as one of ''Australian Art Collector'' magazine's 50 Most Collectible artists in 2008; her works are held by the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

and the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

Life

Born at

Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory Haasts Bluff, also known as Ikuntji, is an Aboriginal Australian community in Central Australia, a region of the Northern Territory. The community is located in the MacDonnell Shire local government area, west of Alice Springs. At the 2006 cens ...

in 1956, daughter of Charlie Tarawa Tjungurrayi (aka Charlie Tararu Tjungurayi), one of the founding members of Papunya Tula Artists, and Tatali Nangala, Eileen was the only one of seven siblings to follow her parents' advice and take up painting. She was reportedly the only one still alive by 2008.

Marriage discrepancies

In 2008, researcher Vivien Johnson reported that she married Puuna Tjakamarra, and had two children, William Tjupurrula and Sharon Napurrula, as well as an adopted son, Jeffrey. However, journalist

Nicolas Rothwell Nicolas Rothwell is a journalist and the Northern Australia correspondent for ''The Australian'' newspaper. He is also an award-winning writer with several works of non-fiction to his name. Background Rothwell is the child of Czech and Australi ...

in 2006 stated that Napaltjarri's husband was named Kenny Williams Tjampitjinpa.

Art

Background

Contemporary indigenous art of the western desert began in 1971 when indigenous men at Papunya created murals and canvases using western art materials, assisted by teacher

Geoffrey Bardon Geoffrey Robert Bardon AM (1940, Sydney – 6 May 2003) was an Australian school teacher who was instrumental in creating the Aboriginal art of the Western Desert movement. Bardon studied law for three years at the University of Sydney, b ...

. Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983. By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally. The first artists, including all of the founders of the

artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting. However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.

Career

She first began painting in 1996, aged 40, for

, of which her father had been one of the founders in the early 1970s. Sources differ on when her work for Papunya Tula became regular, with Gallery

Gabrielle Pizzi Gabrielle Pizzi (1940 – 5 December 2004), born Gabrielle Wren, was an Australian art dealer who promoted Aboriginal art from the Western Desert from the early 1980s. She created the Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in Melbourne in 1987. In 1990, Gabri ...

placing this at 1999, while Vivien Johnson, in her survey ''Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists'', suggests 2002. As of 2010, Napaltjarri had held two solo exhibitions, the second at Utopia Art Sydney. Napaltjarri won the "emerging artist" category of the Redlands Westpac Art Prize in 2005. In 2006, journalist and writer Nicolas Rothwell named her as the successor to Papunya Tula's most significant founding women:

Makinti Napanangka Makinti Napanangka ( 1930 – 9 January 2011) was a Pintupi language, Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert cultural bloc, Western Desert region. She was referred to posthumously ...

Wintjiya Napaltjarri Wintjiya Napaltjarri (born between ca. 1923 to 1934) (also spelt Wentjiya, Wintjia or Wentja), and also known as Wintjia Napaltjarri No. 1, is a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She is the sister of ar ...

and

Tjunkiya Napaltjarri Tjunkiya Napaltjarri (also known as Tjunkiya Kamayi, Tjungkiya, Tunkaii Napaltari, Kowai or Kamayi) (c. 1927–2009) was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She is the sister of artist Wintjiya Napaltja ...

. '' Australian Art Collector'' magazine, in its annual survey of Australian art, included Napaltjarri in its 50 Most Collectable Artists for 2008. Works by Napaltjarri are held by the Art Gallery of New Wales, and the National Gallery of Australia. Napaltjarri paints sites associated with both her mother's country around

Kintore, Northern Territory Kintore (Pintupi: ''Walungurru'') is a remote settlement in the Kintore Range of the Northern Territory of Australia about west of Alice Springs and from the border with Western Australia. It is also known as Walungurru, Walangkura, and Walang ...

, and her father's country, Tjitururrnga (or Tjiturrulpa), to the west of Kintore.

Collections

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Napaltjarri, Eileen 1956 births Living people Australian Aboriginal artists Pintupi Date of birth missing (living people) Artists from the Northern Territory 20th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian artists 21st-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian artists