Ningura Naparrula
Australian Aboriginal Artist
artists by the prestigious Australian Art Collector magazine.
Ningura Naparrula Born: 1938 Died: 2013 Region: Western Desert Community: Kintore Outstation: Lake McKay Language: Pintupi Local group: Pintupi
Subjects and Themes:
Travels of her female ancestors, the sites they passed and the bush tucker they collected
Awards, Commissions:
2006 - Paris, Musee du Quai Branly.
2002 - Alice Prize, highly recomended.
2002 - The Stamps: $1.10 Ningura Napurrula (Pintupi), untitled, Australian Post.
2001 - Finalist 18th Telstra Art Award
Collections:
Musée du quai Branly (Paris)
National Gallery of Australia - Canberra (Australia)
Art Gallery of New South Wales - Sydney (Australia)
National Gallery of Victoria - Melbourne (Australia)
Queensland National Art Gallery - Brisbane (Australia)
Museum & Art Gallery Northern Territory Darwin (Australia)
Alice Springs Art Price Collection (Alice Springs, Australian Northern Territory (Australia)
Australian Tourism collection (Adelaide, Australia)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Collection (Australia)
Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Collection (Canberra, Australia)
Architecture Australia magazine (Australia)
Senator CROSSIN (Australian Northern Territory)
Aborigena at the Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy (2001)
Australian Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Prague, Toskansky Place Prague, Czech Republic (2003)
Masterpieces from the Western Desert, Gavin Graham Gallery London, United Kingdom (2003)
HOOD Museum of Art Hanover
National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, USA)
The Palace of Japan (Tokyo)
The Harold Mitchell Foundation and the Australia Council
Musée du quai Branly, Paris
Art Bank, Sydney
National Museum of Women in the Arts Washington
The Palace of Japan Tokyo
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
National Museum of Australia
Homes a Court Collection, Perth
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
HOOD Museum of Art Hanover
The Harold Mitchell Foundation
Kelton Foundation USA
Gavin Graham Gallery London
Donald Kahn Collection USA
Architecture Australia magazine
Aborigena the Palazzo Bricherasio Turin Italy
Australian Contemporary Aboriginal Art Prague
Toskansky Place Prague
Alice Springs Art Price Collection
Australian Tourism collection Adelaide
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Collection
Australia Council collection
Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2004
Australian Institute Aboriginal Collection Canberra
Individual Exhibitions:
2009 - Ningurra Napurrula: A Survey 2005 - 2009, Utopia Art Sydney.
2000 - William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Exhibitions:
2015 - Indigenous Art: Moving Backwards into the Future, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
2015 - Art Paris Art Fair, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
2015 - Papunya Tula Artists - Indigenous Paintings from Australia's Western Desert, Brumby-Ute Gallery, Aspen, U.S.A.
2014 - Art Paris, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
2014 - Art Elysées, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
2014 - Parcours des Mondes, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris Les Flâneries d'Art Contemporain en jardin aixois, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Aix-en-Provence, France
2013 - Crossing Cultures - The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, U.S.A.
2013 - Parcours des Mondes, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
2012 Tjukurrpa Ngaatjanya Maru Kamu Tjulkura (Dreaming in Black and White), at the Red Dot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore.
2011 - Papunya Tula artists - Community III, at Utopia Art Sydney.
2011 - Pintupi Trail, at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2011 - Papuya Tula Women's Art, at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW.
2010 - Papunya Tula Artists Community, Utopia Art, Sydney.
2010 - Small Papunya Paintings, at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2010 - Papunya Tula Artists - Classics at Honey Ant Gallery Sydney.
2010 - Summer 2010, at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2009 - Community ? the heart of Papunya Tula artists, at NG Art Gallery Sydney, in collaboration with Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery.
2008 - 20 years of Papunya Tula Artists, at Utopia Art Sydney; Paintings from remote communities: Indigenous Australian art from the Laverty collection, Newcastle Regional Gallery, Newcastle, NSW; Papunya Tula Artists 2008, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2007 - Big Paintings from Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney; Papunya Tula Artists
2007, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Papunya Tula Women, Suzanne O'Connell Gallery, Brisbane.
2006-2007 - Gifted: Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The Mollie Gowing Acquisition Fund, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
2006 - Papunya Tula Artists - across the board, Utopia Arts Sydney, Sydney; Oceanic Art, Galerie DAD, Paris, France.
2005 - Papunya Tula Artists, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Papunya Tula Artists - new work for a new space, Utopia Art Sydney; Repetition, Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane.
2004 - Mythology and Reality - Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Peintres Pintupi, Galerie DAD, Mantes-la-Jolie, France.
2003 - Glen Eira City; Mason Gallery at Japinka WA; Gabriella Pizzi, Melbourne; Australian Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Toskansky Place, Prague, Czech Republic; Masterpieces from the Western Desert, Gavin Gallery, London, UK.
2002 - Araluen Art Centre.
2001 - Telstra Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory; Pintupi, Alice Springs; Aborigena, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy.
2000 - Gabrielle Pizzie Melbourne; Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of NSW .
1999 - Utopia Art Sydney.
1996 - Papunya Tula, Alice Springs.
Select Bibliography:
Bardon, Geoffrey; Ryan, Judith; Pizzi, Gabrielle; Stanhope, Zara., Mythology and Reality - Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2004.
Newstead, Adrian. Ningura Naparrula, http://www.aboriginalartcoop.com.au/aboriginal-art/top-200-artists/ningura-naparrula.php, 2009.
JACOB (Stephane), GRUNDMAN (Pierre), PONSONNET (Maia), La peinture aborigène, Nouvelles Editions Scala, Paris, France, 2012
JACOB (Stephane), GRUNDMAN (Pierre), PONSONNET (Maia), La peinture aborigène, Nouvelles Editions Scala, Paris, France, 2012
JACOB (Stephane), RAFFAN (Jane), Ningura Napurrula, editions Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, , France, 2014, CARUANA (Wally), GLOWCZEWSKI (Barbara), GRUNDMANN (Pierre), JACOB (Stéphane), LARGY HEALY (Jessica de), MORVAN (Arnaud). Aborigènes, Collections australiennes contemporaines du Musée des Confluences, Musée des Confluences & Fage éditions, Lyon, France, 2008
© Discovery Media, Documentation Pty Ltd, and the Australian
Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
The Stamps: $1.10 Ningura Napurrula (Pintupi), untitled, 2002 The designs in this painting are associated with the rock hole site of Walyuta, south-west of Mantati Outstation, about 70 km west of the Kintore Community. The roundel is the rock hole and the lines are the sand hills surrounding the area. In mythological times, an old woman passed through this site during her travels towards the east. This old woman is said to be a 'bit of a devil-devil' as she kills and eats people.
Notes: Born around 1938 at Watulka, south of the modern Kiwirrkura community, Ningura Napurrula was married to the late Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi with whom she moved to Papunya in the early days of the settlement. In 1996 she was part of a group of elderly women from Kintore and Kiwirrkura who began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in their own right.
Characteristic of Ningara's work is a strong dynamism and rich linear design-compositions created with heavy layers of acrylic paint.
She participated in an initial Papunya Tula Artists exhibition in 1996 and featured in several group shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin in 1999. She had her first solo exhibition with William Mora Aboriginal Art in 2000, and participated in the impressive Kintore Women's Painting for the Papunya Tula retrospective at the Art Gallery of NSW.
National pride .. Ningura Napurrula is among eight Aboriginal artists whose work has been selected for an exhibition at the new Musee du Quai Branly, in Paris. Photo: Bob Pearce The Sydney Morning Herald May 31, 2006 By Sunanda Creagh
CLAD in red shoes, pink socks and a beanie, the Pintupi artist Ningura Napurrula is pleased and proud. The 68-year-old is among eight artists whose work has been selected for the new Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, making her a standard bearer for Aboriginal art in Europe. The Australian Indigenous Art Commission, to be opened at the museum on June 20, will showcase work by leading Aboriginal artists including Napurrula, Lena Nyadbi, Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Judy Watson, Gulumbu Yunupingu, John Mawurndjul, Tommy Watson and the late Michael Riley.
More than 2500 square metres of work will adorn ceilings and walls over four levels in one of the museum's buildings, making it the largest ever commission of indigenous Australian artwork. Napurrula's work, Untitled (Wirrulnga), tells the story of travelling women who stop at special sites to give birth, but she has no travel plans herself. "I don't want to go to the opening in Paris because it's too far and I've got grandchildren to look after," she said through an interpreter at yesterday's preview of the project.
The Arnhem Land artist Gulumbu Yunupingu had no such inhibitions, saying she wanted to go to Paris to "make friends and look around". "I am happy to give my paintings to France," she said. "I represent Australia. Here we are; we come together. I am part of you and you are part of me and we need each other because we are Australian." The works were selected by the Aboriginal art curator of the National Gallery of Australia, Brenda L. Croft, and the Aboriginal art curator of the Art Gallery of NSW, Hetti Perkins, both of Aboriginal descent.
The women welcomed the chance to show Aboriginal art to the world, but condemned the conditions indigenous people endure at home. "We have been abandoned by the present government," Perkins said, pointing to Australia's Aboriginal health and poverty crisis. Croft said Aboriginal people "don't have a voice except through art and culture" and criticised the Government for abandoning plans for a resale royalty scheme, by which artists could collect royalties when their work is resold at auction. "They should have brought it in." The eight artists would not benefit from the increase in value of their work on the secondary market, she said.