Naata Nungurrayi Pintupi language group, circa 1932
Provenance
The Artist, painted at Kintore, Northern Territory
Papunya Tula Artists, Northern Territory, cat. no. NN 1003039
Private Collection, Melbourne
D’Lan Contemporary, Melbourne
Collection of Steve Martin & Anne Stringfield, New York
Exhibitions
Desert Painters of Australia Part II: With Works from the Collection of Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield, Gagosian, Beverly Hills, 26 July – 6 September 2019
60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, New York, May 2023
Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu (Past and Present Together), Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, UT, 18 July – 6 December 2025; The Grey Art Museum, New York University, New York, NY, 20 January – 11 April 2026; The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 26 September 2026 - April 2027
Literature
Christopher Knight, 'Review: Spectacular aboriginal paintings from Australia burst with deep, sacred beauty', Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2019
Fred Myers and Henry Skerritt. ‘Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu (Past and Present Together): Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists’, 2022, plate 88, p. 222-223 (illus.)
This painting relates to the site of Piti Kutjarra, which is slightly south west of the Kiwirrkura community in Western Australia. In mythological times many women travelled through this site after visiting Marrapinti, just north of Piti Kutjarra. At Marrapinti the women made the nose-bones which are worn through a hole in the nose-web. These nose-bones were originally worn by both men and women but are now only worn by the older generation on ceremonial occasions. The women later travelled east passing through Ngaminya and Wirrulnga collecting the edible berries known as kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the small shrub Solanum centrale which grows nearby. -Text from Papunya Tula Artists