Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri
Yam Spirit Dreaming , 1972
Synthetic polymer paint on board
26 ¾ x 23 ³⁄₁₆ inches (67.95 x 58.9 cm)
© The Estate of the Artist, by permission of Papunya Tula Artists through the Aboriginal Artists Agency. Photography by Tony De Camillo for the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University
Provenance
The Artist, painted at Napperby Station, Northern Territory, March 1972
Private Collection
Corbally Stourton Fine Art, London
Collection of John and Barbara Wilkerson, New York
Exhibitions
Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya, The Herbert F Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 10 January - 5 April 2009; Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, 3 May - 2 August, 2009; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, 1 September - 5 December, 2009
Abstraction & the Dreaming: Aboriginal Paintings from Australia’s Western Desert (1971 – Present), Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Utah, 11 September - 12 December 2015
Australian Consulate-General New York, Official Consul General Residence, New York, 5 October 2021 - 20 October 2022
Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu (Past and Present Together), Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 24 June 2021 - 27 February 2022
60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, New York, 5 - 20 May 2023
Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu: Past & Present Together, Embassy of Australia, Washington,DC
9 November 2023 - 11 December 2023
Publications
Bardon, Geoffrey. Papunya Tula: Art of the Western Desert. McPhee Gribble, 1991, pp. 120, 138–139.
Bardon, Geoffrey, and James Bardon. Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement. The Miegunyah Press, 2004, pp. 321–322, painting 262.
Connors, Thomas. "Cultural Crossings." The Magazine Antiques, July/August 2025, pp. 130–141.
Corbally Stourton, Patrick. Songlines and Dreamings: Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Painting. Lund Humphries, 1996, p. 139.
Kean, John. Dot Circle & Frame. Upswell Publishing, 2023.
Merlino, Vanessa, and Luke Scholes. 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art. UOVO, 2023, pp. 38–39 (illus.)
Myers, Fred, and Henry Skerritt, eds. Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu (Past and Present Together): Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists. University of Virginia Press, 2022, pp. 116–117 (illus.)
“Aboriginal people inherit spiritual, social and cultural associations with plants, animals and geography. Yam Spirit Dreaming is part of a small series of works created by the artist to express his cultural affiliations with the anek (yam). Prior to life in settlements, Western Desert Aboriginal people relied on yams as a staple food and as a valuable source of moisture during summer months. Its bulbous fruit grows approximately 20 inches underground and once harvested is lightly roasted on coals or eaten raw.
The pale-yellow silhouette in this painting simultaneously illustrates the yams’ presence above and below the surface of the earth. Seen from above, the subterranean root system and its tubers and indistinct from the surface vines that creep across the desert floor. Closer inspection reveals a suggestion of the amorphous figures of the anek ancestors that intertwine with the network of roots. The seated presence of ceremonial participants is suggested in the form of half circles.”(Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, 2023, p. 38)
![Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, Bushfire Spirit Dreaming at Napperby [formerly Untitled], 1972](https://static-assets.artlogic.net/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/ws-twocollections/usr/images/artworks/main_image/items/f7/f7f185f043a44b438e11947b59d9ad82/cat33_tltjapaltjarri.jpg)
