< Back Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi Also know as: Yella Yella, Yala Yala Gibson, Ala Ala Kebbs, Yala Yala No.II, Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi 1924 - 1998 Also know as: Yella Yella, Yala Yala Gibson, Ala Ala Kebbs, Yala Yala No.II, ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi 1924 - 1998 Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi was born c.1924 at Iltuturunga and first left his homelands west of Lake Macdonald in 1962 with his wife Ningura Napurrula in order to seek treatment of their son Mawitji who was suffering from severe burns. Following this first taste of community life during which Mawitji was treated in the newly established Papunya community hospital they returned with welfare patrols to their desert homeland. In July 1963 they returned to live at Papunya where their second son was born and Yala Yala became one of the founding members and shareholders of the artist group that began painting in 1971. Geoff Bardon remembered him as a solemn man who spoke little, but who gave himself wholeheartedly to his work, quickly developing fine technical craftsmanship and a particular style characterized by a strong linear quality. Bardon had the difficult job of choosing the core group of artists from the enthusiastic crowd that regularly gathered at his small flat to experiment with the art materials he provided. As one of the inventors of the ‘Tingari’ painting style Yala Yala became one of the six artists who received a government allowance to paint full time in the very first years of the painting movement. During this time, his distinctive line drawings helped to point Bardon towards some comprehension of the ‘hieroglyphic-like language’ that underscored the Dreaming stories. Bardon was fascinated by the weaving relationship between circular forms and traveling lines. He realized that between the principles of stillness and movement, an entire worldview could be articulated. The circle was the completed line of the traveling principle, curled up in a campsite, yet also the origin of the traveling line, ongoing in its many modes and modifications. Traveling itself was an expression of life, a response to the seasons and the need to find food, but also intrinsic to the people’s understanding and mythology of the earth. The interaction and collaboration between the artists at Papunya was intense and provided impetus to the increasing momentum of the Western Desert art movement. However, it was not without its moments of contention. There was disagreement between groups as to what sacred objects and designs could be included. In 1975, forty-four paintings out of forty-six, in a Perth exhibition, were turned to the wall in response to the demands of a visiting group of Pitjantjatjara men. They were deeply disturbed by overt references to their secret beliefs and ceremonies. Papunya Tula painters were forced to pay compensation and a process of abstraction and stylisation ensued. Sacred elements were veiled, and Pintupi painting in particular took on a strong design focus. With his natural talent for conceiving uncomplicated yet arresting arrangements, Yala Yala’s paintings were at the forefront of this classic Tingari period. His mind-maps of his vast, desert homeland emanate a simple grandeur. Loops, spirals and roundels are linked by traveling lines and held in unity with, often diffuse, background dotting. A restricted range of ochre colours conveys his sense of tethering to the earth, which was also reflected in his working manner. With the other Pintupi artists, he would often sing traditional chants while painting and always use a sense of touch through hands and fingers, to bring the work into being. He returned to the Western Desert with several of his countrymen in 1974 and moved to KIntore to establish an outstation at Mantardi in 1981. In a move that was interpreted as signalling the acceptance of contemporary Aboriginal art by the Australian art establishment, his work was included in an exhibition of large acrylic canvases shown at the Art Gallery of NSW that same year. This was due in part to the then art manager at Papunya Tula, Andrew Crocker, who promoted the paintings as a form of contemporary art rather than ethnographic imagery that belonged in a museum. Crocker did much to set the whole enterprise on a sounder business footing as growing international attention focused on the artists. In accord with market demand, the Papunya men broadened their experimentation with abstraction and painterliness, loosening the restrictive rules and patterning that had helped to consolidate the earlier phase of their painting, each responding with increasing confidence in their own signature styles. After a period during the late 1980’s, when Tingari paintings became moribund and fell out of favour in a market already embracing an ever-growing number of regional styles, several senior men managed to make the conceptual leap to less descriptive, abstracted designs based on their traditional patterns. This was especially so of Mick Namarari, Turkey Tolson, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa and a small number of others. To some degree however, Yala Yala’s work remained unchanged. His son, a spirited young man who was often away, would write to his father in the English that he was being taught at school and Geoff Bardon would read Yala Yala the warm and reassuring letters. But even this would not raise a smile. The outer circumstances of Yala Yala’s life had caused him to withdraw from those beyond his small community yet inwardly his spirit continued to burn brightly through his art and ceremonial obligations. Having moved to his outstation Mantardi, he was far happier to be close to his traditional lands midway between Kintore and Kiwirrkurra. He was a senior custodian of Pintupi sacred sites and knowledge, and painted devotedly until his death in 1998. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS As would be expected, Yala Yala’s early boards, most especially those created in 1971-1973, occupied six of his ten best results at auction until the end of 2006. Today only 4 early boards remain. In failing to make the transition to the minimal aesthetics adopted by other important Papunya male artists during the 1990s, Yala Yala has been greatly undervalued for some time and this is reinforced when looking at the length of time many of his best sales records have stood. Nevertheless the sale in 2008 of a large Papunya Tula provenanced work created in 1979, for $126,000, had the effect of lifting his career average price by almost $2,000 to $14,295. It was more than three times his former record and provided further evidence that the mid to late 1970s works by a number of formative Papunya painters could follow on the coat tails of Clifford Possum’s $2.4 million Warlugulong 1977 canvas in setting the secondary market on fire. During 2007, sales for two works painted just prior to his death displaced his second and fourth best results. Snake Dreaming at Karrilwarra 1998 , a small work measuring just 91 x 46 cm, was originally sold by Sotheby’s in 2002 (Lot 86) for $15,600 against a presale estimate of $7,000-10,000. Even Sotheby's must have been surprised when, carrying the same estimate five years later, it sold in their July sale for $38,400 (Lot 53). Lawson~Menzies were far more confident just two months earlier in June when they estimated a larger work, measuring 122 x 122 cm, at $30,000-40,000 and achieved the low estimate. (Lot 71). The speculator who had paid $15,600 at Sotheby’s in October 2006 for a very large work created in 1977, entitled Tingari Men at Mulli-Ukutu , would therefore have been very disappointed when it failed to attract any interest from buyers at Lawson~Menzies in November the following year (Lot 145). In 2012 an early board Old Man's (Yina) Dreaming (1972), recorded Yala Yala's second highest record when sold at Sotheby's for $45,600. Yala Yala’s reputation, as a seminal member of the original Desert painting group who helped to refine the early Puntupi style, is substantial. Prior to 2008, he had a very healthy average price on sale at $13,921, although his total sales were a very low $574,551. His career sales totalled $715,507 in 2009. They now stand at $944,221. Yet despite his $126,000 record and an above average clearance rate of 67%, his sales are dominated by very low results. More than half of the 68 works sold have achieved less than $10,000 and, other than his record price, his best sales are poor in comparison to many of his contemporaries. Notably, 2007 and 2008 were by far the best years since 1995, the year after his works began appearing on the secondary market, with ten works sold out of 12 offered. Yala Yala Gibbs was not a highly prolific artist and despite the stellar 2008 record, his results are unlikely to escalate rapidly. Most of the works that achieved relatively low prices were created in the 1980s and early 1990s and these are likely to remain out of favour amongst collectors other than those with an ethnographic preference who are interested in the second stage in the development of Pintupi art. There are few early boards even amongst his unsold works and this would indicate that his output was small. His best works are tied up in institutional collections or tightly held. If and when any come on to the market, expect them to fly. 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< Back Dorothy Robinson Napangardi Also know as: Robertson Dorothy Robinson Napangardi 1956 - 2013 Also know as: Robertson ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS Dorothy Napangardi spent her early childhood living a nomadic life at Mina Mina near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She recalled camping at claypans and soakages with her mother, Jeanie Lewis Napururrla, learning to collect the plentiful bush tucker and grinding seeds for damper cooked on hot ashes. READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Dorothy Robinson Napangardi 1956 - 2013 Dorothy Napangardi spent her early childhood living a nomadic life at Mina Mina near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She recalled camping at claypans and soakages with her mother, Jeanie Lewis Napururrla, learning to collect the plentiful bush tucker and grinding seeds for damper cooked on hot ashes. This idyllic life came to a close when her family was forcibly relocated to the government settlement at Yuendumu. Dorothy’s father, Paddy Lewis Japanangka greatly regretted the move, particularly for its impact on the traditional education of his children. However, his attempt to return to country with his family failed and they remained in the government settlement until Dorothy married. She moved with her husband, an elderly man to whom she had been promised at a young age, to Alice Springs and bore him four daughters and later, after the marriage eventually broke down, gave birth to her youngest child, Annette, by another man. It was here, in Alice Springs in 1987, that she began painting. Dorothy’s early artistic endeavours were heavily influenced by memories of her childhood. Her subject matter was principally the Bush Plum and Bush Banana, wild fruits that grow in abundance near Mina Mina, changing in colour as they ripen, which she mirrored in her depictions. The paintings, at such an early stage in her career, clearly marked Dorothy as an artist of great talent. Her superb sense of composition created a rhythmic effect as semi-naturalistic depictions were entwined in an altogether geometric formation. In the late 1980s, the government marketing company Aboriginal Arts Australia closed its Alice Springs outlet and its manager Roslyn Premont opened her own, Gallery Gondwana. After meeting Roslyn in 1990, Dorothy began painting exclusively for her gallery and the close personal relationship that developed between the two women lasted up until her tragic death in 2013. The studio environment and financial security that Premont provided enabled Dorothy to experiment freely and develop her artistic repertoire rapidly. As it did, she created works that drew on her innate visual consciousness, developed during those early years spent in the vast unlimited expanses of the desert. From 1997 onward, Dorothy began producing works which traced the grid-like patterns of the salt encrustations on the Mina Mina clay pans marking a significant artistic shift in her work. Over three years, her paintings became less and less contrived and increasingly spare, all detail pared back to the barest essentials. These new works, in which Dorothy began to explore the Women’s Digging Sticks Dreaming and other stories related to the travels of the Karntakurlangu, compel the spectator's eye to dance across the painted surface, just as these ancestral women danced in the hundreds across the country during the region's creation. Dancing digging sticks magically emerged from the ground at Mina Mina, equipping the large band of women for their travels over a vast stretch of country. The tall desert oaks which are found there today symbolise the emergence of the digging sticks that rose up from beneath the ground itself. As these works developed, her extraordinary spatial ability enabled her to create mimetic grids of the salt encrustations across the claypans of Mina Mina. The lines of white dots trace the travels of her female ancestors as they danced their way, in joyous exultation, through the saltpans, spinifex and sandhills, clutching their digging sticks in their outstretched hands. Kathleen Petyarre has been quoted as saying 'Those Walpiri ladies, they’re mad about dancing, they go round and round and round dancing, they’re always dancing' (cited in Napangardi 2002: 22). Little wonder then, that the surfaces of Dorothy’s canvases become dense rhythms of grids, as she mapped the paths of these dancing women. In 2001 Dorothy Napangardi was the recipient of the 18th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and in the following year a solo exhibition of her work was curated for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Through her association with Roslyn Premont and her Gallery Gondwana, Dorothy’s paintings have enjoyed considerable commercial success. Yet despite this close and nurturing relationship, Dorothy continued to occasionally paint for others when moved to do so. These ‘outside‘ paintings are rarely as good as her Gallery Gondwana works. However, there have been exceptions and these have included a number of major canvases painted for Peter Van Groesen and sold through Kimberley Art Gallery in Melbourne. Creating these paintings has in no way undermined her personal integrity. While Dorothy Napangardi’s paintings may be seen as important commodities and major investments, her work can be so beautiful and ethereal, as to border on the sublime. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Despite having produced paintings from the late 1980s, Dorothy Napangardi's popularity and the high prices achieved for her works are a relatively recent phenomenon and relate almost entirely to her post-1997 works. In fact, all of her ten highest sales have been for works produced after 2000. All are restricted to the limited pallet and grid-like patterns of vertical and horizontal dotted lines, which mimic the salt encrustations at Mina Mina. Despite the beauty of her highly accomplished and colourful Bush Plum and Bush Banana works, as demonstrated in the Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition and accompanying catalogue Dancing Up Country , the very best of these have never been offered at auction and minor works in this style have attracted very little interest when compared to the more abstracted paintings created after 1997. Before 2012, the highest results for these had been the meagre $3,055 each, realised when two small colourful floral works were offered for sale at Bonham Goodman in 2004 and Shapiro in 2002. Gaia Auction in Paris sold a colourful Bush Banana Dreaming canvas measuring a large 130 x 200 cm in 2011, for AUS$14,550. Though insufficient to indicate a clear market preference for her more muted style, it is notable nonetheless, and perhaps significant that it was sold overseas. Her solo exhibition held from December 2002 to March 2003 at the Museum of Contemporary Art threw those interested in Aboriginal art into a spin. In a controversial and extremely unusual move, Gallery Gondwana held a commercial exhibition of her work at the Danks Street Depot Gallery concurrent with the MCA show. Dorothy’s major large black canvases featuring tight grids of carefully dotted white lines sold for around $60,000-80,000 each, double the prices similar works had attracted just six months earlier in her Gallery Gondwana Alice Springs exhibition. Similarly, 120 x 120 cm paintings previously exhibited for $10,000-12,000 and 150 x 90 cm works at $8,000 had jumped in price to $25,000 and $18,000 respectively. Dorothy was definitely the artist of the moment, and the show was a sell-out. This intense primary market interest subsequently declined. By 2012 a 150 x 90 cm work of impeccable provenance had decreased in value to around $15,000. Still a healthy increase in value over its value pre-2002. In 2015, a very fine black and white gridwork measuring 122 x 198 cm and purchased by Dutch uber-collector Thomas Vroom in 2001 sold for just $24,400 at Bonham's, a far from desirable outcome regardless of the depth of Vroom's pocket. Dorothy's MCA show and the success that followed heralded a dearth of quality paintings in relation to the demand generated by serious collectors, setting the preconditions for a sudden rash of works on the secondary market from 2002 onward. While only one painting was offered for sale at auction in 2002, seven appeared in 2003, 27 in 2004 and 26 in 2005. 2015 was Dorothy's best year since 2009 when her sales total was $200,930. Dorothy Napangardi's most successful paintings at auction have featured a network of closely knit interconnected dotted squares built to form duotone patterned grids on dark, most often black, backgrounds. By randomly in-filling white dotted squares with yellow or deep red ochre dots, a mottled effect is produced as demonstrated in her top-selling lot, Karntakurlangu . When this work sold at Sotheby’s in July 2004 (Lot 113) it more than doubled its high estimate of $60,000 taking $129,750. In the same auction, a larger subtler piece failed to reach its low estimate of $50,000 and was passed in. The work was later sold at Lawson-Menzies in November 2006 sale for $55,200. Dorothy’s second-highest result at auction was for Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa 2003 a much larger 183 x 350 cm work on linen. Carrying a presale estimate of $80,000-100,000 it sold for $120,000 at Lawson~Menzies in November 2007 (Lot 62). Sales in 2008 were poor, in line with the market slump and the end of Lawson~Menzies specialist sales. This resulted in her career clearance rate dropping below her somewhat respectable 65%. 2009 brought a mixed bag of results, with 13 of the 32 works on offer selling, including a number of impressive sales upwards of $20,000 that sit just outside of the artist’s top ten records. Generally, the majority of the failures carried poor provenance or were smaller paintings. These results should not diminish the results for her finest pieces. Without these failures, her sale rate would have been closer to a spectacular 81%, despite the vast majority of these works having spent such a short time between their original purchase and subsequent appearance at auction. Dorothy Napangardi was an artist of top calibre and her highest auction results gave her one of the best records for any living artist at the time. Since 2009 she has constantly hovered between 20th and 25th on of the top 100 artists. However, this acclaim is unlikely to last indefinitely. She tragically died a relatively young woman. At just 50 years of age should have had many productive years ahead of her. The heat her career generated from the late 1990s to 2009 will be difficult to maintain now that her repertoire is finite. At the time of her death, her art practice was being severely compromised by the quantity of ‘copycat paintings’ that were being produced by members of her family and others that were sold under her name. The closure of Gallery Gondwana, her principal agent, did not help. Still, 2019 saw Napangardi included in a Sotheby's New York sale of important indigenous artists, where her two somewhat impressive works sold for AUD50,000 Buyers lucky enough to purchase works before her MCA show in 2002 will always be able to make a very good profit on their paintings at sale. However, those paying higher prices in her exhibitions during the following decade will need to rely on a buoyant market and excellent provenance if they are to reap financial rewards. Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Lorraine Austin ​ Lorraine Austin 1956 - ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Lorraine Austin 1956 - ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Bronwyn Bancroft ​ Bronwyn Bancroft ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Bronwyn Bancroft ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Delores Tipuamantumirri ​ Delores Tipuamantumirri ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Delores Tipuamantumirri ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Carol Puruntatameri ​ Carol Puruntatameri ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Carol Puruntatameri ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Shanna Napanangka Williams ​ Shanna Napanangka Williams ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Shanna Napanangka Williams ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Walangkura (Uta Uta Tjangala's Widow) Napanangka ​ Walangkura (Uta Uta Tjangala's Widow) Napanangka ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Walangkura (Uta Uta Tjangala's Widow) Napanangka ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Nolan Tjapangati ​ Nolan Tjapangati ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Nolan Tjapangati ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Peter Mondjinju ​ Peter Mondjinju ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Peter Mondjinju ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Beverly Cameron ​ Beverly Cameron ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Beverly Cameron ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

< Back Jacob Jungarrayi Spencer ​ Jacob Jungarrayi Spencer ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Jacob Jungarrayi Spencer ​ ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .