Pegleg Tjampitjinpa Pegleg Tjampitjinpa 1920 - 2006 Riilyki, Karlngaaka, Pegleg Mick, One Leg Pegleg Tjampitjinpa was born in the Kiwirrkurra area c1920. He earned his nickname when an infected spear-wound from a tribal fight resulted, after four months of suffering and being carried by his father-in-law, in the loss of his leg from the knee down. He walked with the help of a long pole, which he used to propel himself forward in large strides. He and his family, including over a dozen children from his several wives, had no contact with Western Civilisation until 1957, when they encountered a Northern Territory Welfare Branch patrol, which eventually relocated the family to Papunya. In 1996, during a visit to his lifelong friend Pinta Pinta Tjapanangka in Kintore, he started painting works reminiscent of the first Papunya Tula artists, focusing on Tingari designs in a limited pallette of reds, blacks and whites. Soon after, owing to his poor eyesight and following the death of Pinta Pinta, Pegleg entered a hiatus until an eye operation in the late 1990’s restored his sight and he could resume painting. In 2000 Pegleg was included in the landmark exhibition at the AGNSW, Papunya Tula - Genius and Genesis. He is represented in major public and private collections throughout Australia and overseas. At the time of his death in 2006, Pegleg Tjampitjinpa was at least 85 years old. Pegleg’s works first appeared at public auction in 2003, when two small Papunya Tula provenanced works were offered for sale through Sotheby’s. However, this artist rarely painted for PT as evidenced by the fact that of the more than 40 works offered for sale since that time, only one was painted for the art centre. The most impressive works to have appeared on the secondary market were championed by Lawson Menzies( Menzies) between 2004 and 2007. Understandable, as he passed away in 2006 and painted principally outside of Papunya Tula whist living in the Pintupi settlement at Kintore. In 2004 L~M established his benchmark at $18,000 with a work created for Alice Springs art dealer Steve Nibbs and sold originally through Kimberley Art Gallery in Melbourne. This is still his second highest sale on public record. By the end of 2005 Lawson~Menzies had offered 11 of the 17 paintings that had appeared at auction. Pegleg’s $45,600 record was set by Lawson~Menzies following his death in 2006, when a 151 x 183 cm work was offered with a resale estimate of $40,000-50,000 in 2007. Overall, 41 works had been offered at auction by the end of 2017, of which 59% (24) sold for an average price of $6,946. Only 13 works had appeared since the demise of Lawson~Menzies’ Aboriginal Art Department at the end of 2007, yet there are known to be a number of fine examples in private hands. Many were painted for the ubiquitous Chris Simon, who provided the artist with the conditions and materials to paint masterworks on a grand scale. Sotheby’s may not touch them, but when they do come up for sale, expect Pegleg’s records to tumble. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 JOANNE CURRIE NALINGU - FLOW STATE Price AU$25,000.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Price AU$29,700.00 JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 MINNIE PWERLE - AWELYE - ATNWENGERRP Price AU$25,000.00 JACK DALE - WANDJINAS AT LONDRA Price AU$25,000.00 ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - AHARLPER COUNTRY Price AU$25,000.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 BILL TJAPALTJARRI WHISKEY - ROCKHOLE NEAR THE OLGAS Price AU$3,500.00 YALA YALA GIBBS TJUNGURRAYI - TINGARI AT KARRKURRUNTJINTJANA Price AU$11,400.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

< Back Netta Loogatha Birrmuyingathi Maali ​ Netta Loogatha Birrmuyingathi Maali 1942 - 2022 ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Netta Loogatha Birrmuyingathi Maali 1942 - 2022 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 .

Jarinyanu David Downs Jarinyanu David Downs 1925 - 1995 Jarrinyanu, Djarinyanu, Jorijonu, Downes Jarinyanu David Downs was one of those old cowboys who, like Rover Thomas, was born in the Great Sandy Desert in the 1920’s and eventually, toward the end of their lives, settled in the Kimberley region in the North West of Australia. He first moved from his traditional lands to the cattle stations in the 1940s, while still in his early twenties, to join the family of his promised bride. The next twenty years were spent droving cattle as well as occasionally working in the gold mines around Halls Creek. Jarinyanu’s first European boss bequeathed him his European name, David Downs, however when he eventually settled in Fitzroy Crossing, due to its proximity to the Wangkajunga country of his birth, he reverted to using his own real name. He first began working as an artist after moving to Fitzroy Crossing in the 1960's, decorating boomerangs, shields and coolamons. However it wasn’t until 1980 that he was commissioned to work on paper and canvas, using traditional ochres with natural resins as a binder. These initial works typically were dramatic dark silhouettes against a white acrylic background. Pictorial symbols were used to represent country and, though figures appear, they were merely one element within a larger composition, in contrast to the dominance of the figure in his later paintings. The influence of Christianity could be seen from the outset in many of his earliest works. The United Aboriginal Mission established in the 1950s at Fitzroy Crossing was a powerful presence in the community. As Jarinyanu’s career developed he developed a visual language that expressed his Christian beliefs coupled with a celebration of traditional law. He believed that as god created the natural world, it was perfectly acceptable to pay homage to his creation of the surrounding environment in accordance with its local cultural form. In doing so he created a relationship between Australian Christianity and specific cultural sites, which white Australia had neglected to identify. At the same time, he daringly depicted ancestral beings in human form, visualizing the once unseen Ngarrangkani (Dreaming) ancestors. The primary vehicle for expressing this two-way religious philosophy was the song cycle of Kurtal, the ancestral rain man. He was born on a distant island and traveled to the Kimberley as a cyclone. As he moved on inland he created places of ‘living water’ (permanent water sources) and visited other rain men, occasionally gaining valuable items from them through trickery and magic. The figure of Kurtal, often depicted with ceremonial headdress, and the participants in ceremonies relating to his story, appear constantly in Jarinyanu’s work. Other than his occasional canvases depicting Christian themes such as Whale Fish Vomiting Jonah 1993 and Jesus Preach’im All People 1986, it is the Kurtal figure that filled canvas after canvas until his death in 1995. Jarinyanu’s success at bridging two such separate cosmologies can be seen as part of a broader tradition of cultural exchange in the Kimberley, predating European contact. However, it is a sign of great triumph that his contact with Christianity did not weaken his commitment to ritual law. He was very conscious of himself as an artist. ‘I’m different’ he would claim, when describing himself. His peers would describe his directness by exclaiming, ‘he’ll tell you right out’ (Kentish 1995: 2) He had come to terms with the concept of individual fame brought keenly into focus by viewing his own work in art galleries, and the experience of having his portrait painted and hung in the Archibald Prize. His ability to negotiate his way in the white world no doubt had great influence on his success. He was one of three Walmajarri artists at Fitzroy crossing that began painting on canvas through private representation as individual artists. Jarinyanu along with Peter Skipper Jangkarti were represented by Duncan Kentish, whilst Jimmy Pike, whose career began in Fremantle prison in 1980, was represented by Steve Culley and David Wroth of Desert Designs. Individual representation brought many rewards, particularly solo exhibitions in galleries such as Bonython-Meadmore Gallery in 1988, Roar 2 Studios in 1991, Chapman Gallery in 1993, and Ray Hughes in Sydney in 1995, where always resplendent in his white shirt and pants, he was presented as a contemporary artist alongside non-Indigenous artists. Jarinyanu David Downs enjoyed a highly successful career encompassing sculptural artifacts, painting and a significant body of limited edition prints. He was one of the earliest Aboriginal artists to be individually represented and, at the time of his death, was considered one of the leading lights of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. While David Downs’ success cannot be solely attributed to clever representation there is no doubt that he would never have achieved the degree of notoriety and acclaim had he not shared a special relationship with his agent and friend, Duncan Kentish. His unique imagery based on two vastly different religious traditions was conspicuous in galleries in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They first appeared at auction in 1997 when three sold of the four offered and, at their peak, went on to attract lofty prices on the secondary market. By 2001, six years after his death, 27 works had been offered for sale of which 21 had sold for a clearance rate of 78%, however, the story has been dramatically different since that time with his career clearance rate falling to 61% by 2011. In a bullish market, growing exponentially for all but a few major artists, a drop from a success rate of 78% to one of 61% appears to be dramatic. Catastrophic even, if you happen to own a work and want to sell it. While his record price at auction was set in 2000 for Kurtal Lying Down at Muwa 1988 which achieved $36,800 at Sotheby’s against a presale estimate of $18,000-25,000 Lot 121), the large number works that have been passed in at auction indicates clearly that vendors need to be far more realistic in their expectations if they wish to find a buyer. There have been exceptions, but they are extremely rare. Works featuring distinctly Christian imagery are more unique and less repetitious than paintings depicting Kurtal. Only three of these have been offered for sale at auction and all have sold. Whale Fish Vomiting Jonah 1993, measuring 112 x 137 cm fetched an impressive $14,950 in 1999, its desirability no doubt enhanced by the fact that it was being deaccessioned by the Holmes a Court collection and carried its code number. The two others were very small and sold for $4,800 and $3,600 when offered in Sotheby’s June 2004 sale (Lots 449 and 450). Lawson~Menzies sold a magnificent Ceremonial Shield c.1989 for $18 000 in May 2005 (Lot 8) some three times the estimated price. And in July 2006 Sotheby’s set the artist’s second highest price of $31,200 for a wonderful small work measuring just 91 x 61 cm that had been included in Niagara Galleries’ Blue Chip III collectors exhibition (Lot 91). These exceptions are, however, by and large deviations from the norm. Though good pieces can still receive significant sale prices, works in the medium range have moved little, and re-sales on the secondary market have proved unprofitable. Kurtal with Headdress of Radiating Wuring 1990 sold for $3,600 in 2004, just a fraction higher than its sale price of $3,450 in 1998, despite a significant jump in its estimate from $3,000-5,000 up to $6,000-9,000. This simply underlines the fact that attempts at raising the value on mid-range and high-end works as the years have progressed have been largely met with failure. Dance of Kurtal, which represents the artist's 5th and 6th highest results, depreciated in value by over $3,000 by the time of the second sale four years later, in 2007. David Downs was a unique and important artist who created a significant body of visually striking works. The relatively poor performance of his works at auction during the boom years 2004-2007 should not put collectors off from expressing interest in his works and buying selected pieces after deliberation. Many good works will be offered at far more reasonable estimates during the next decade. He is not an easy artist to access visually and many seem to find it difficult to discern the magnificent from the mundane. His images are an anomaly, as were Jimmy Pike's, in a region more renowned for lack of figuration. If you have any doubts about your own artistic intuition, then perhaps you are better placing your faith in safer waters, for many other artists are far easier to read. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 JOANNE CURRIE NALINGU - FLOW STATE Price AU$25,000.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Price AU$29,700.00 JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 MINNIE PWERLE - AWELYE - ATNWENGERRP Price AU$25,000.00 JACK DALE - WANDJINAS AT LONDRA Price AU$25,000.00 ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - AHARLPER COUNTRY Price AU$25,000.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 BILL TJAPALTJARRI WHISKEY - ROCKHOLE NEAR THE OLGAS Price AU$3,500.00 YALA YALA GIBBS TJUNGURRAYI - TINGARI AT KARRKURRUNTJINTJANA Price AU$11,400.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

OCEANIC ART FAIR ​ From 05 November to 05 November 2022 OCEANIC ART FAIR ​ From 05 November to 05 November 2022 17 Thurlow St, Redern, NSW 2016 ​

< Back Jacqueline Puruntatameri ​ Jacqueline Puruntatameri ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Jacqueline 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 .

Charlie Numbulmoore Charlie Numbulmoore 1907 - 1971 ​ Charlie Numbulmoore lived for many years on Gibb River Station in the Central Kimberley where anthropologist Ian Crawford first recorded him repainting Wandjina figures in a Mamadai cave in the 1960’s. The few biographical details of Numbulmoore’s life that exist are traced solely through his encounters with those anthropologists who collected his work. Following Crawford’s initial encounter, Helen Groger collected the artist’s work on behalf of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in 1970, the same year that collector and grazier Tom McCourt purchased a number of paintings on bark, plywood, and cardboard. In his journal McCourt recollected Numbulmoore as 'the last of the old people here… who has that certain something that impresses you… when I was in Charlies camp, I bought several paintings he had in his hut from him… although his work is childlike, it has the primitive look of paintings seen under the rock hangings out in the bush' (cited in Sotheby’s 2003: 10). The Wandjina, exclusive to areas of the Kimberley, are said to have lain down in a cave and turned into a painting after their time on the earth. The Worrorra, Ngarinyin, and Woonambal clans of the Kimberley are responsible for maintaining the remnants of these spirit ancestors. Numbulmoore’s paintings show a unique conception of the Wandjina, characterised by large round black eyes fringed with short delicate lashes. The centre of the chest features a solid black, or occasionally red, oval said to depict the sternum, or heart, or a pearl shell pendant representing its spiritual essence. The almost circular head is surrounded by a very regular, tripartite halo or headdress representing hair, clouds, and lightning. Unusual in these works is the inclusion of a mouth and a long narrow parallel-sided nose, flared at the very tip with nostrils. After retouching a Wandjina near Mamadai Charlie stated 'I made you very good now…you must be very glad because I made yours eyes like new. That eye you know, like this my eye… I made them new for you people. My eye has life and your eye has life too, because I made it new … don’t try bringing rain, my wife might drown with the rain' (cited in Ryan 1993). The reference to the Wandjina’s power over the rains is particularly pertinent for Numbulmoore. The inclusion of a mouth is distinctive of his work as this is rare in Wandjna depictions. That he does so illustrates how individual interpretations of Wandjina are unique to each clan. Their more common absence is most often attributed to a belief that painting a mouth on the Wandjina’s face would bring perpetual rain. It has been suggested that Wandjina paintings on bark were first produced for trade and exchange with missionaries travelling by lugger along the coastline prior to mid 1970's. The Worrorra, Ngarinyin, and Woonambal artists did not possess the technical know how commonly found in Arnhem Land. For this reason their own barks were 'usually poorly prepared, the often knotty surfaces left irregular, and the pigments, applied without fixatives' (Ryan 1993: 15). Few of these pre 1970's examples survive. However, Charlie Numbulmoore’s paintings are a rare exception to this, as along with bark, he employed unusual, but more durable surfaces, such as slate, hard wood coolamons, or even cardboard. Notably images of the Wandjina created on bark, canvas or slate were viewed by artists like Numbulmoore as purely reproductions of the ‘real’ Wandjina’s adorning the cave walls at their most important Dreaming sites. Their primary artistic inspiration and purpose lay in their responsibility to maintain the ancestral beings, by repainting them and ‘keeping them strong’. The great strength of Charlie Numbulmoore’s artistic legacy is that he was able to convey the aesthetic and spiritual power of the Wandjina undiminished through a range of portable media that survive to this day. Charlie Numbulmoore’s works are rare and have a primitive numinous appeal. His paintings have appeared at auction only 35 times and, in what is extremely rare in Aboriginal art sales, only six have been passed in with all but two of his ten highest results exceeding their high estimates. Amongst those works offered more than once, was a 62 x 38.5 cm bark, which just exceeded its top estimate of $30,000 at Sotheby’s in 2000 and four years later sold for $49,850 showing an increase of $14,200. Two Spotted Wandjina c.1965 has appeared three times. This 78 x 60 cm work executed in earth pigments on cardboard achieved a price of $23,500 against a presale estimate of $18,000-25,000 when it first appeared for sale in Deutscher~Menzies in May 2000 (Lot 30). Three years later it reappeared at Lawson Menzies October 2003 sale with a slightly higher estimate of $25,000-35,000 and reached $35,250 (Lot 33). In a result that reflects Sotheby’s preference for ethnographic works, this painting sold for $72,000 when re-offered in July 2007 against a presale estimate of $40,000-50,000 (Lot 30). Only a work on slate, sold by Sotheby's in 2002 for $22,800 cost its owner when resold in 2012 through Bonham's for $18,300. Still, the pleasure derived from living with it should have more than compensated. In 2018 a bark that originally failed to sell through Leonard Joel in September 2015 when estimated at $12,000 - $18,000, was pushed by Sotheby's in London at GBP25,000 - 35,000 and failed once more. His highest price is $228,000, paid for an unusually large work measuring 161 x 80 cm at Sotheby’s in July 2007 (Lot 28). During 2006-07 no less than four works exceeded his previous record of $71,000 paid for a painted coolamon in Sotheby’s July 2005 auction. Since 2000 Numbulmorre has fetched high sums, often outstripping the estimates set by auction houses by up to three times. Moreover, there is a high degree of acceptance of the eclectic array of surface on which his images are painted with works on cardboard, slate, plywood, bark, and painted coollamons all fetching high prices. These staggering prices paid for works that only recently would have been considered artefacts or ethnographic curiosities attest to a fascination engendered by the Wandjina image itself. In Numbulmoore’s case, the use of his image on the cover of Images of Power, Aboriginal Art from The Kimberley, published by the National Gallery of Victoria, has only added to his status as one of the most important exponents of this art. Though Charlie Numbulmoore’s barks predate Alec Mingelmanganu’s canvases by up to a decade, Numbulmoore’s results rank just behind Mingelmanganu on the secondary market before the low numbers offered are taken in to account. Works by both of these artists are now firmly established as blue-chip investments and will become increasingly difficult to obtain. The $228,000 record price paid for Numbulmoore’s Wandjina image in Sotheby’s 2007 sale just eclipsed his record of the previous year. These results were more than three times his record set only a year earlier, and just barely below the record sale of a Wandjina bark, by Alec Mingelmanganu at Sotheby’s in June 2002. That only four have failed at auction is testament to both the scarcity and desirability of Numbulmoore’s work. Such a result at auction is practically unheard of and all the more unusual because of the high value of his lowest sales record at $15,600. It is indicative that in 2015 only one work appeared for sale. It was offered in Sotheby's sale of the Thomas Vroom collection in London. The bark was far from his best and badly damaged, yet it achieved one of Numbulmoore's highest results, selling for GBP equivalent of $AUD34,920. With works of such uniformly superb quality there is little risk of depreciation. Numbulmoore’s works are rare, with only ten being offered for sale since 2007; they will always be strongly contested when they appear at sale. While they may seem rich pickings, I believe that his paintings are still undervalued and collectors should expect to see them continue to surge in value. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 JOANNE CURRIE NALINGU - FLOW STATE Price AU$25,000.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Price AU$29,700.00 JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 MINNIE PWERLE - AWELYE - ATNWENGERRP Price AU$25,000.00 JACK DALE - WANDJINAS AT LONDRA Price AU$25,000.00 ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - AHARLPER COUNTRY Price AU$25,000.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 BILL TJAPALTJARRI WHISKEY - ROCKHOLE NEAR THE OLGAS Price AU$3,500.00 YALA YALA GIBBS TJUNGURRAYI - TINGARI AT KARRKURRUNTJINTJANA Price AU$11,400.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE Artists: Emily Kame Kngwarreye From 05 March to 28 April 2020 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE Artists: Emily Kame Kngwarreye From 05 March to 28 April 2020 Location: Cooee Art Online During a whirlwind painting career that lasted just eight years, octogenarian Emily Kame Kngwarreye became Aboriginal Australia’s most successful living artist and carved an enduring presence in the history of Australian art. By the time she passed away on September the 2nd 1996 her fame had achieved mythic status. The Sydney Morning Herald obituary reported the ‘Passing of a Home Grown Monet’. By this time comparisons with a number of great international artists including Pollock, Kandinsky, Monet and Matise, had become commonplace. Emily was an artistic superstar, the highest paid woman in the country, who created one of the most significant artistic legacies of our time. As a painter Emily was a bold, unselfconscious force unleashing colour and movement on to canvases that at their best could be sublime. Her finest paintings are entirely intuitive works, painted during furious sessions in which she never stepped back to look. Her forceful independent personality coupled with the strength she developed while working with camels and labouring during her earlier life was clearly evident as she painted. She worked as if possessed, drawing long meandering lines and bashing out fields of dots with her exceptionally strong hands and arms, displaying her ability to use the most unlikely overlays of colours to create deeply luminous works. Like Pollock she painted on the ground but, unlike him, she crouched over the canvas until done. She was renowned for walking away from a canvas without even surveying the finished product, such was her assuredness about its content and meaning. VIEW CATALOGUE EX 198

< Back Abie Jumbyinmba Tjangala Also know as: Jangala, Dudanba, Walpajirri, Jumbyinmba Abie Jumbyinmba Tjangala 1919 - 2002 Also know as: Jangala, Dudanba, Walpajirri, Jumbyinmba ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS Born at Thompson’s Rockhole in the Tanami Desert, Abie Jangala was initiated in to Warlpiri Law and inherited his father’s responsibility for the essential Rainmaking and Water Dreamings of this vast and arid desert area. The Warlpiri were still nomadic hunter-gatherers when forced by drought to gather around the encroaching European settlements in the Tanami and Western Deserts. READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Abie Jumbyinmba Tjangala 1919 - 2002 Born at Thompson’s Rockhole in the Tanami Desert, Abie Jangala was initiated in to Warlpiri Law and inherited his father’s responsibility for the essential Rainmaking and Water Dreamings of this vast and arid desert area. The Warlpiri were still nomadic hunter-gatherers when forced by drought to gather around the encroaching European settlements in the Tanami and Western Deserts. Abie began working at the Granites copper mines, where he first learnt English and became familiar with European ways. Despite the necessity of regular visits to his sacred sites for ceremonial purposes and for further instruction from his father, Abie was trucked off to Alice Springs to build army barracks, roads and an airstrip when the war broke out at the beginning of the 1940's. By the time he returned several years later, his family had been settled at Yuendumu, an overcrowded and somewhat chaotic government settlement on the edge of the Tanami Desert. Eighteen months later in 1948, Abie was trucked off once more; this time, to build a new settlement at Hooker Creek on Gurinji land, hundreds of miles from his own country. While many of his people, unhappy with being so distant from their Dreaming sites, walked back to familiar territory, Abie stayed on and the small community of Lajamanu slowly grew. New children were being born and in this new 'country' they become responsible for new Dreamings, which required observance. However Abie was regularly called back to his own country. His father died and ceremonial seniority was passed to him. Thus he became the ceremonial boss of the Water, Rain, Cloud and Thunder Dreamings, the most senior 'rain man' in the northern Tanami region. On hearing of the growing popularity of painting amongst the Pintupi and other groups in the Western Desert, the Warlpiri men of Lajamanu and Yuendumu were initially highly suspicious. A number of community elders considered painting to be a shameful exposure of secret and sacred Warlpiri knowledge. It was during this time that Abie was included in a group of twelve Warlpiri men who traveled to Paris in 1983 to create a traditional sand-painting and perform corroboree at the Musee d’Art Moderne. Their traditional designs had only ever been painted on skin and etched in sand and the group were still strongly opposed to committing them to any permanent medium. 'The permanence of these designs is in our minds,' they stated publicly, 'we are forever renewing and recreating these traditions in our ceremonies' (Jangala 1977: 103). The group’s visit to London, the Unites States and the capital cities of Australia was their introduction to the contemporary art world and generated a huge level of interest and awareness. Three years later the Warlpiri position had changed and an adult education course run by John Quinn introduced western art materials and methods at the local school. Abie Jangala played a key role in negotiating a middle path through the conflicting points of view amongst elders reluctant to engage in painting. However, as artistic activity strengthened, a much-needed source of income was established for the community. The establishment of Warlukurlangu Artists at Yuendumu had already shown how permanent records of traditional designs provided a means of preserving and maintaining the culture, while the stunning success of artists who initially lived at Papunya and had used money earned from painting to re-establish their links to country closer to Lake MacKay, gave promise of financial rewards. The women of Lajamanu in particular were anxious to see their children provided with some source of spiritual grounding in the face of so many modern influences and distractions. However, Lajamanu's isolation, due to its great distance from the urban art centres and the difficulty of communication with the outside world, slowed the public emergence of Lajamanu art significantly. As late as 1989, there were still no telephones to connect the inhabitants of the community with the outside world. However, the arrival of a satellite dish from Yuendumu resulted in a teleconference link up with the director of Coo-ee Gallery in Sydney, his curator Christine Watson and Allan Warrie of the Aboriginal Arts Board, during which Abie and other Lajamanu artists presented their work and an exhibition was arranged for the following year. In that same year, Perth gallery director Sharon Monty flew into the small community and, impressed by Abie Jangala's 'awesome and imposing presence,' his wonderful sense of humour, his patience, and his willingness to explain the content of his paintings, she began to represent him in Western Australia. Thus he became the first artist from Lajamanu to have solo exhibitions and a painting career that led the way for other artists from there. By 1991 Judith Ryan had published a book 'Paint Up Big' on the new Warlpiri art movement for the National Gallery of Victoria and the following year Gallerie Boudin Lebon in Paris exhibited their work curated by the anthropologist Barbara Glowszewski. In the early 1990's, due to poor administration, Lajamanu lost the funding that would have enabled it to maintain a fully functioning art centre. Lava Watts assisted the artists voluntarily and with the closure of Sharon Monty's gallery in Perth, she helped to forge a representative relationship for Abie Jangala with Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery in Sydney. This relationship lasted until Abie's death, including the short periods during which the art centre was resurrected. Through this relationship Abie was provided with art materials and also produced a large body of works in the print medium. From the outset Abie Jangala's paintings were unique recreations of the iconography that pertained to rain making ceremonies and the reverence in which Dreamings associated with the Rainbow Men are held amongst Warlpiri people. His early works were created on a deep thalo green or black ground with the stark symbols specifically representing rainbows, lightning, clouds, waterholes and frogs, composed in much the same way as they are etched in relief on the body of rainmakers when covered in kapok or feather down for ceremony. Abie typically painted these powerful symbols, which are also recreated in ceremonial ground constructions, in solid black or red, outlined in single alternate bands of bright yellow, green and red dots, thereby emboldening the icons to evoke the shimmering and alluring effect of the Rainbow Men and their dramatic manifestation as natural climatic phenomena. This allure is imitated by the glint from pieces of broken mirror or shiny belt buckles worn and carried by men in ceremony; and the glistening skin of women covered in animal fat and red ochre. Typically these paintings are in-filled with compact white dots representing rain or fields of hailstones. At the height of his artistic powers Abie could apply these uniform white dots in such a way as to evoke the same meditative quality as that of the raked grounds of Zen meditation gardens. Abie once explained that he painted, 'the proper paintings... they are from my father. He comes to me in dreams and tells me what to paint, and how paint it'. As the composition of his paintings turned to more symbolic ways of depicting ancestral stories, the choice of colour emphasised their kuruwarri, to make them ‘really strong’ (Kleinert 2000: 611). While his early paintings were created in traditional earth colours that vibrated with contrast and intensity, he quickly moved toward high contrast by employing green and red in the textured ground and, towards the end of his life, paler shades of blue and mauve thereby creating more subtle gradations of light and dark. By this late stage in his painting the in-fill had lost its precise execution and resultant meditative quality, giving way to a blizzard of small interconnected, overlapping and melting white dots. At the time of his death, despite his inability to paint, he worked on etching plates, a number of which were editioned posthumously. One of these, in which the white dotted field was embossed, was part of the landmark Yilpinji-Love Magic portfolio including prints by fifteen of the important senior Warlpiri and Kukatja artists in Lajamanu, Yuendumu and Balgo Hills. Although Abie Jangala’s life spanned a period of momentous change and re-invention for the Warlpiri people of Australia’s remote Tanami Desert, his quiet determination to work constructively within imposed and often challenging constraints, saw him win acclaim during his lifetime as the greatest living Walpiri painter. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Abie Jangala was not a prolific artist due to the slow and deliberate way in which he worked, and painting was difficult in Lajamanu during his lifetime. His best paintings are in several important collections and those that remain in private hands are likely to appear only on very rare occasions. Robert Holmes a Court and the National Gallery of Victoria started collecting his works in 1989, and by the time he passed away in 2002, he had held three solo exhibitions at Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney. The first of these was in 1993, the year his work first appeared on the secondary market. By 2001, only six works had been offered, of which five were sold. In 2002, all three works offered failed to sell. However, in 2004, all nine works offered were successful for a total value of $45,000. None of his finest works have been offered for sale to date. The involvement of Coo-ee Gallery in Abie's career was the reason that so many good works appeared. Apart from his record-holding work, the best of those offered have suffered mixed fortunes. His highest price was for "Ngapa Tjukurrpa 1993", which achieved $13,800 when offered with a presale estimate of $8,000-12,000 at Sotheby's in June 2000 (Lot 38). His second-highest record was for a painting misnamed "Frog, Rain and Billabong 1994", which sold for $12,000 at Sotheby's in October 2006 (Lot 107). It carried an estimate of $10,000-15,000, having failed to sell when estimated at $30,000-40,000 at Sotheby's 18 months earlier. Many of Jangala's works find buyers only when making a second appearance at auction. For instance, "Brock Brock-Frog Dreaming" offered at Shapiro Auctioneers in May 2002 (Lot 256) and "Rainbow 1994" offered at Sotheby's in November 2005 (Lot 112) both failed the first time around, yet when they reappeared at Lawson Menzies in November 2004 and November 2006, respectively, they became what are now the artist's eighth and seventh highest records at $7,200 and $9,600. A small work, "Women-Karnta 1997" failed the first time around at Sotheby's in November 2005 (Lot 113) but later reached $2,160 at Lawson~Menzies in November 2006 (Lot 280). This demonstrates the fickleness of the secondary market toward major artists from more obscure regions such as Lajamanu. Abie Jangala is an important artist whose best works have yet to surface at sale. When they do, it is expected that they will more than double his current record. They are rare, highly distinctive, and suit a contemporary aesthetic. His late career works, though less accomplished, have a spare simplicity evocative of the artist's age and stature, as he was about to pass his ceremonial responsibilities on to the next generation of keepers of the great Warlpiri Rain Dreamings. 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 .

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