Old Walter Tjampitjinpa
Provenance
The Artist, painted August 1972
Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs, consignment 17, painting 35, cat. no. 17035
Acquired by a Canadian doctor who worked at Papunya in 1972
Private Collection, Vancouver
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 9 July, 2001, lot 88
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
Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 30 September 2011 - 12 February 2012; Musee du quai Branly, Paris, France, 9 October 2012- 20 January 2013
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
Publications
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 9 July, 2001, p. 86-87
Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, 2004, p. 188, painting 97
Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, 2023, p. 44-45 (illus.)
Thomas Connors, The Magazine Antiques, Cultural Crossings, July/August 2025, p. 130-141
“Old Walter Tjampitjinpa was senior custodian of the Water Dreaming and its association with the soakage water site of Kalipinypa. Situated approximately 95 miles west of Papunya, Kalipinypa is associated with water and its physical manifestations in the form of storms, lightning, thunder, hail, and rain. Rainbow and Water Story uses stark iconography to illuminate the cultural geography of Kalipinypa and the presence and actions of related ancestral beings.
The large ‘U’ shapes simultaneously refer to the seated presence of two ancestral Water Men and rainbows. The dotted lines and roundels within these shapes indicate body paint designs that decorate the chests and backs of the men. The diamond shape between them depicts a hairstring cross, used by the men in ceremonies associated with Kalipinypa.” (Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, 2023, p. 44)
"By 1972, Old Walter Tjampitjinpa found a new freedom in composing his water themes. The centrality of this design of radiating spirals, representing overflowing water, is enclosed by two strong half-circles in a powerful visual composition. The centrepiece is a hair-string ceremonial object and a soakage is marked as a mysterious roundel. Concurrent with the water theme are two men (and a rainbow) decorated with ceremonial travelling markings; the opposed half-circles, or men, face eachother. The patterning in white and yellow depicts bush tucker, sand and landscape of the region. This should be compared with Freddie West Tjakamarra's Man's Ceremonial Story of June-July 1972." (Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, 2004, p. 188)