Johnny Tjupurrula Warangkula

c1925 - c2001

Johnny Warangkula Jupurrula was born in 1925 at Minjilpirri, an area north west of Illipili and south of Lake Mackay. Close by is his major dreaming site Tjilkari. The son of mixed parents, his mother was of Luritja/ Warlpiri/Pintupi descent and his father Luritja/Warlpiri. Johnny was raised in a traditional manner, living an orthodox life style in the desert and never attending European schools. He is of the Luritja language group and was initiated into manhood and learned his dreamings during his family’s stay at a mission in Hermannsburg.

Johnny can recollect his first contact with Europeans, remembering his fearful response when witnessing an aircraft fly over his land as a young boy. His people believed the aeroplane to be a ‘marnu’ or devil. At a later date, his people came into contact with camels for the first time and again hid in fright as they recognised the beasts as being evil.

All of that is a far cry from the sophisticated auction rooms of Sotheby’s in Melbourne where, in July 1997, his painting ‘Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa’ changed hands for a record $206,000. When he sold the painting at Papunya 25 years previously he received just $150 and remembers this only in terms of the food which it bought at the time. Interviewed in 1997 Johnny claimed, ‘I come from the bush. We dont know money’. From partial obscurity, ‘Johnnny W’, as he is affectionately known, became a figure to be reckoned with in the history of Australian art. Well before that time, however, the National Gallery of Australia had recognised his position in the scheme of Aboriginal art. In 1984, James Mollison, Director of the gallery claimed that their painting by Johnny W (the gallery’s first purchase of a western desert painting) was ‘the finest abstract art ever produced in this country’.  Perhaps Mollison’s boastful claim had its effect on the price paid at Sotheby’s thirteen years later.

The Desert art movement was no longer ‘emerging’; the sale of ‘Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa’ had rivetted the attention of collectors and investors confirming the promise and potential it had displayed over the past two decades. At the same time this sale offered towering hopes for the future. Perhaps it was an abberation - one of those spectacular quirks thrown up by auction houses - but the sale, just six months  later, of an early painting by Billy Stockman for $200,000  seemed to prove otherwise. A sale which predeeded both of those was again at Sotheby’s and saw an early Papunya work, ‘A Cave Dreaming’, by Anatjari Tjakamarra go for $74, 570 in June 1996.

Between 1971 and 1972 there were some 500 paintings made and sold at the Papunya community. These are the paintings which collectors prize most highly, obviously because of their historical significance.

Certainly these were all paintings from a particular moment and particular place, but they were made by a fascinating band of nomadic tribesmen who in western terminology metamorphosed quite rapidly  into ‘master’ painters. This was a talented and productive ‘mob’. Johnny Warungkula Tjupurrala proved to be outstanding amongst them because of his innovatory approach and his delicate technique. A significant group of the artists from that time continue to paint in the late 1990’s.

Johnny Warungkula Tjuppurulla’s painting career began after a long turn at labouring, his efforts contributing to the development of roads, airstrips and settlements in areas such as Haasts Bluff, Mt Leibig, Yuendumu and Mt Wedge. In return for his work building roads, shovelling dirt and felling trees he was remunerated in the form of consumable goods, ‘tucker’ (as he calls it) - flour, tea, sugar, fresh vegetables and tobacco.

Before the bulk of the Haasts Bluff population were moved to Papunya in 1960, Johnny was selected along with Nosepeg Tjupurullaas Aboriginal representative to meet the Queen. After settling in Papunya Johnny served on the Papunya Council with Mick Namarari (qv), Limpi Tjapangati and Kingsley Tjungarrayi.

Geoffrey Bardon’s arrival at Papunya inspired the community to begin using western art materials. Johnny rapidly developed a distinctive style of his own which came to be known as ‘overdotting’. He uses several layers of dots to depict his dreamings, which consist of Water, Fire, Yam and Egret stories. There are also stories from Nyilppi and Nyalpilala  which are his father’s Dreamings. Geoffrey Bardon labelled this stylistic layering effect as ‘tremulous illusion’ and in his book, Papunya Tula Art of the Western Desert. Bardon fondly recollects images of Johnny painting with an “intense level of intuitive concentration”.

From the very beginning at Papunya, Johnny has always adhered to the idea that his paintings are stories - Aboriginal stories. He has never allowed any infiltration of European influence and rarely uses literal depictions of objects. Geoff Bardon advised the ‘painting mob’, of which Johnny was an important member, to paint in an Aboriginal way using Aboriginal signs and symbols that one might have found in body paint, tjuringa or sand paintings. Because of this ‘purity’ his works retain an integrity  which places them amongst the most significant productions from the seminal art site that was Papunya.

Bardon pointed out that Johnny’s paintings, ‘can be measured on a scale of modern aesthetic’. And as if to qualify that remark, Bardon further offered the idea that the artist used, ‘caligraphic line with almost Baroque excitement’. A very insightful observation which holds true in 1999, particularly in regards to the very ‘late’ and hugely energetic works of this period. One of the great characteristics of the Baroque style, dominant in the seventeenth century, was the energy, rhythm and theatricality with which stories (usually Christian stories) were told. Johnny’s style was described this way:

Tight organization of bands and lines, hatching and dot embellishment give his work a powerful, energetic visual strength. He uses convoluted spiral symbols for people, and animal tracks and distorted figures as illustrations of ceremony  not in a formal way but intuitively.

The extreme age of Aboriginal culture, and their own acknowledgement of, and daily involvement with, the eternal dreaming needs to be considered. One Aboriginal man who visited France was asked, on his return, to comment on French culture. His reply was that it was interesting but very young. The Baroque was yesterday. 

During the l980’s Johnny became a major force in the Papunya movement, receiving great critical acclaim for his contribution to the recognition of Papunya artists as a mirror for the identification of indigenous culture. In 1984 the director of the National Gallery of Australia, James Mollison, was photographed along side one of Johnny’s works claiming that the work of the Papunya artists was ‘the finest abstract art ever produced in this country’.

Due to Johnny’s failing eyesight his output of work has steadily reduced over the years. He currently lives in Papunya with his wife Gladys Napanangka and his eight children.

In early 1997, Michael Hollow  made a great effort to revive Johnny's painting career and commissioned him to do a series of small works. From this series Johnny began a new phase in his distinguished painting career and developed this new direction with other galleries and dealers over the next few years. This series, perhaps his final one due to failing health, includes a range of small to very large dynamic, powerful paintings in pure red, blacks with white, yellow and ochre highlights. Each of the works features the established imagery of Johnny’s Dreamings overpainted to hide the secret and sacred elements. These works have evolved slowly over an eighteen month period during which time the artist has displayed once more his mastery of this unique form of art and storytelling. These important. late works are made despite failing eyesight and poor health. It may seem ludicrous to draw parallels between this Aboriginal painting master and Monet in their corresponding last years. However one cannot help noticing those similarities. Further, Johnny’s technique and brushwork bear an eerie resemblance to the techniques invented and employed by Monet in his late waterlilly paintings at Giverny. This may only prove that the mark-making we call art is a basic expression of the human spirit as one mind strives to communicate with another in visual terms. The Frenchman Monet was inspired by his Japanese watergarden - Warungkula by his birthright - his ancient dreamings.

During early 1999 the  Jinta Desert Art Gallery in Sydney included a number of Johnny Warungkula Jupurrula’s late works, in a group exhibition which featured the paintings of three other legendary Papunya painters, Billy Stockman Japaltjarri, Clifford Possum Japaltjarri and Charlie Egalie Japaltjarri. Furthermore when the same gallery sent an exhibition to The United Nations building in New York during August/September 1999, three of Johnny’s recent paintings were included. The stories, which he had been painting consistently since 1972, included the Kulwa Waterbirds Dreaming and the dynamic Tjilkari Fire Dreaming.

In 1999 Johnny paints this story with a new-found freedom, both in expression and in painting technique. Where he was once known for his delicate and soft white dotting, he now attacks the canvas to tell the story with great gusto. He jabs large dots on to the surface and produces roundels and symbols for weapons with great sweeps of his arm and the brush. Red, black, white. Had he painted in France during the 1950’s he would have been labelled a ‘Taschist’. The audience who saw his paintings at the United Nations Building seemed generally to agree that Johnny was indeed a significant artist who in some sense retained an authenticity and timeless importance in his work that some of the younger painters were yet to achieve. All great painters, past and present, seem to have an additional level in their work which may defy description. This evasive quality is sometimes born of the synthesis achieved between colour, form, texture and meaning. When viewing paintings by Johnny Warangkula Tjupurulla we find ourselves in a position where the recognition of another elemental level is tantalisingly close and for a lucky few the spirit is moved beyond words.  In the presence of great visual art, the employment of everyday language can become a futile and unproductive gesture. 

Collections:

Holmes a Court, Queensland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, National Museum of Australia Canberra, National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Orange Regional Gallery, Alice Springs Law Courts, Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Darwin, Flinders University Art Museum, South Australian Museum, Art Gallery of NSW