Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri

Family Moon Dreaming

1977

In 1978, Geoffrey Bardon requested that Namarari produce six paintings about the Moon Dreaming for his documentary film, Mick and the Moon, even though it was a subject he painted infrequently. Because it is a “public” story with less cultural restrictions, it allowed Namarari the freedom to improvise his designs, making them unique in his body of work. At the time, they were highly regarded by fellow artists for their artistic inventiveness, and today the other five works are held in important collections such as the National Gallery of Australia. In this particular work, Namarari shows four people, indicated by the U-shapes, gathered around a central sand painting of the moon, shown as the concentric circle in the middle.

I paint real slow, no rush, slow.

MICK NAMARARI TJAPALTJARRI

Language Group: Pintupi
Dates: 1927-1998

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri was one of the founding artists at Papunya. When the painting movement started in 1971, Mick Namarari’s work immediately stood out, as it signaled a departure from the traditional iconography of Pintupi painting, which included concentric circles and lines. He developed an abstract style on more expansive canvases, using striking undotted lines in his designs. In addition to varied stylistic approaches, he also had a diverse range of subjects, such as the site of Tjunginpa and a Dingo Tjukurrpa site at Nyumanu, southeast of Kintore. In 1991 he won the National Aboriginal Art Award and in 1994 he was awarded co-winner of the Alice Prize and inaugural winner of the Red Ochre Award. Throughout his career, he made over 700 paintings. After his passing, two of Mick Namarari's children, Angelina Nungarrayi and Peter Tjungurrayi, started painting in a style reminiscent of their father’s. In 2017 Mick Namarari was given a solo retrospective titled The Mysteries that Remain at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection.

MICK NAMARARI TJAPALTJARRI, Family Moon Dreaming, 1977

Synthetic polymer paint on
composition board. 25 3/16 × 18 3/16 in. (64 × 46 cm).
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997. 1991.0021.021.

Mick Namarari with his family at Walungurru, 1997.

Photo by Dennis Schulz.

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