< Back Lilly Kemarre Morton ​ Lilly Kemarre Morton ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Lilly Kemarre Morton ​ 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 Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford Also know as: Nyunkuny, Kuwumji Bedford Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford 1922 - 2007 Also know as: Nyunkuny, Kuwumji Bedford ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford 1922 - 2007 Paddy Bedford was born at Bedford Downs Station in the East Kimberley c.1922. He was given the name Paddy after the station manager, Paddy Quilty, a hard man, who was believed to be the instigator of the strychnine poisoning of Gidja Men at Bedford Downs in retaliation for killing a milking cow near Mount King several years earlier. Like many of his Gidja countrymen, Bedford worked for Quilty and others as a stockman for the majority of his life in return for rations of tea, flour and tobacco. These and other, often horrific, events are woven into the contemporary history of the Kimberley region and provided Paddy Bedford with a unique perspective informing an art practice that began in his late 70’s. Though he had been involved with ceremonial painting all his life, it was by chance that a gallery dealer happened upon some of his boards in a rubbish tip in the mid 1990’s. From such humble beginnings Paddy began painting formally in 1997, with the formation of Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts. Initiated by Freddy Timms with help from artist Tony Oliver, the group which includes Timms, Peggy Patrick, Rammy Ramsay and others, has gained exponential notoriety and they have been ‘mythologised, almost like rock stars, by some of the country’s best writers’ (Bowdler 2005: 45). In tangible terms Jirrawun Arts has been able to provide the kind of individual support and promotion of its artists that art centers have difficulty emulating. Numerous shows were organised through the group, in which Bedford starred during his lifetime, including Blood on the Spinifex at the National Gallery of Victoria and True Stories at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. 'I’m a millionaire' Bedford shouted when he received his first cheque as an artist. Over the following decade his painting style developed from simple expanses of flat ochre to masterful luminous textured surfaces. Painting in a recognizable east Kimberley style in which plains of ochre are disrupted only by sparsely planted shapes, Bedford masterfully combined important ancestral Dreamings with depictions of his environment and contemporary historical events. His health and dexterity at various times dictated the medium in which he worked. Introduced to gouache and paper after 2000, he created intimate works that were equally successful as those depicted in ochres. In both mediums his paintings are imbued with authority and an absolutely distinctive individual language within the east Kimberley conventions. Characteristic of Paddy’s style are richly ochred surfaces with minimal arrangements of circular shapes, often centered upon a band, and delineated by white dots. Though important Dreamings such as the Emu, Turkey, and Cockatoo are present in many of his works, like the narratives of his family history they are not depicted in any figurative form. This is evidenced in the self-published book, Walk the Line, produced during 2004, in which Bedford depicted important sites and explored the culture of his people. Paddy Bedford, an enigmatic octogenarian, stood out as a uniquely talented artist. He was amongst the few selected to contribute to the permanent installation at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris and was honoured, during his lifetime, with the unprecedented recognition of a retrospective exhibition and a major catalogue by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney during 2007, which toured nationally. His work, most probably without intention, became embroiled in the ‘history wars’ between various social commentators and journalists after Keith Windschuttle, in his book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History 2002, questioned the veracity of Aboriginal oral accounts of such tragedies as the Bedford Downs massacre. Three years later Paddy Bedford exhibited a series of paintings based on the Bedford Downs massacre at the National Gallery of Victoria. The Blood on the Spinifex exhibition revealed a surprising attitude to the killings. Its power lay in the 'modesty of the voice, the quiet economy of the storyline, the sober lack of sentimental or rhetorical elaboration' (Nelson cited in Bowdler 2005: 46). It is testament to this wonderful old stockman and artist, one of the great Kimberley characters, that the truth distilled within his canvasses has brought broad acceptance amongst a majority of Australians as to the credibility of Gidja oral accounts of their traumatic encounters with white settlers. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Paddy Bedford, like Eastern Anmatjerre artist Emily Kngwarryee, produced paintings for no more than a decade at the end of his life. However unlike Kngwarreye, who produced in excess of 4000 paintings before her death in 1996, Bedford painted only sparingly for most of his late-blooming, artistic career. At their best, his minimal abstracted ochre works have an equal power and strength to those of Rover Thomas, the founder of the East Kimberley style. However Bedford was physically capable of producing major paintings for only a limited period of his life, restricting his work beyond this to painting on paper created in coloured gouache and smaller, more manageable works on linen and artboard. His entire artistic output was produced for Jirrawun Arts, other than a small number of paintings on canvas and artboard created during a workshop organised by Neil McLeod for Jack Dale at his home in Derby during late 2001. During the workshop Bedford stayed with Dale, an old friend, and although the paintings he created at that time were extremely well photo-documented these works are not considered to have been part of his ‘official’ catalogue resonne and their value has therefore been discounted in the market. Between 2000 and 2006, Bedford’s secondary market results were dominated by non-Jirrawun paintings, the highest selling of which being a 106 x 147 cm work on linen entitled Caves at Old Bedford 2001, which went for $19,200 at the Lawson-Menzies November 2004 auction (Lot 22). At the start of 2007 a superb 180 x 150 cm canvas, Girrganyji the Brown Falcon Dreaming 2000 sold well over estimate in Shapiro’s June 2003 auction taking $17,625 (Lot 163), to become the artist’s second highest record. During his own lifetime Bedford remained one of those rare artists whose secondary market prices did not reflect the prices paid for his works by collectors in the primary market. His exhibitions at galleries including Raft Gallery in Darwin, Chapman Galleries in Canberra, Martin Brown Gallery and Grant Pirrie in Sydney and William Mora Galleries in Melbourne were always eagerly awaited events and the buyers of works from these exhibitions were universally unwilling to let go of their prized purchases until 2007. What a difference just three years can make! Paddy Bedford passed away early in 2007 and since then his sales have been nothing short of spectacular. There have now been 32 sales of $75,000 and over, which have propelled Bedford from relative obscurity on the secondary market at the end of 2006, to see him rank 1st in 2011, 4th in 2012, 2013 and 2014, 5th in 2015 and 3rd in 2016. With an Aboriginal Art Market Rating in 2006 of just 0.892 and a ranking between the 120 and 150th in terms of his individual auction success he became the 12th most successful artist of all time by the end of the following year, the eighth by 2012 and 6th by the end of 2015. At the time of his death his most contemporary looking paintings were already valued in the primary market for as much as $85,000, with small boards produced toward the end of his painting career in 2005-2006 selling for up to $25,000, yet his record price at auction remained below $20,000. In 2007 William Mora featured the artist in his stand at the Melbourne Art Fair to rapturous acclaim. However, following the Bedford's death, with primary market sales having dried up completely, auction houses were deluged with interest. The same year, at Lawson~Menzies no less than eight potential buyers were willing to bid above $120,000 for Joogoomoondiny - Gawler Gully 2004, and by the time two eager buyers had finished their titanic struggle the painting, sold to a Swiss collector for $300,000, the artist's record price to this day. Merremerrji-Queensland Creek, 2005 was the star performer in Bonham's solo artists sale Selected Works from the Estate of Paddy Bedford when it sold for $216,000. And Thoonbi, 2006, a work held in the superannuation fund of Melbourne uber-dealer Bill Nutall, achieved $180,000 at Bonham's in 2012 despite a dismal result for the sale overall. In 2013 two works entered his top 10 results. Ngarrmaliny-Cockatoo at Police Hole, 2003 measuring 150 x 180 cm, and carrying an estimate of $150,000-180,000, sold for $201,300 at the Bonham's Laverty Collection sale in March; and in June, Thoowoonggoonarrin 2006 , achieved $183,000 at Sotheby's. In spite of some adverse publicity in the Bulletin magazine, suggesting Bedford was assisted in many works, his popularity continues undiminished. In 2015, 12 of 14 works sold for an average price of $45,567, another work entering his top ten results. Since his death in 2007, Paddy’s best works have shattered his earlier records. And no wonder! Their sophisticated, subtle palette and inspired sense of design, as well as their relative scarcity, ensure that they will remain amongst the most highly desired of all Aboriginal paintings indefinitely. 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 .

A COOEE CHRISTMAS | ADVENT CALENDAR ​ From 27 November to 24 December 2021 A COOEE CHRISTMAS | ADVENT CALENDAR ​ From 27 November to 24 December 2021 ​ Few things are as exciting as the lead-up to Christmas. Throughout December, much of the world counts down (or rather up) to the 25th, when stockings have been stuffed and the red and green wrapping paper is rolled up and stashed in the most remote corner of your cupboard........ This year, by popular demand, we are bringing back A Cooee Christmas – our enormously fun recurring exhibition of small, affordable, and most importantly, beautiful paintings. Only this time, the event comes in the form of an advent calendar! 25 timber-framed canvas board paintings by artists from communities such as Warnayaka Art Centre in Lajamanu, Warlukurlangu Artists in Yuendumu, Ngaruwanajirri on Bathurst Island North of Darwin, and Bula Bula Arts in Ramingining Central Arnhem Land are included in the calendar. Each purchase of a gorgeous painting supports the art world, communities, and the artists themselves. Here are the rules: Collectors and gift-givers choose blindly – only on the corresponding day is the artwork revealed. If you choose a gift for yourself or a loved one, we will make sure a hardcopy and/or digital card revealing your/their present will reach you in time for Christmas. All artworks will be available for collection from our Redfern Gallery or posted after Boxing Day* Buyers can pick as many as they like, so be quick and choose yourself and/or a loved one a wonderful Christmas surprise! *please refer to our holiday hours for collection availability ​

< Back Sharlene Nakamarra Nelson ​ Sharlene Nakamarra Nelson ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Sharlene Nakamarra Nelson ​ 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 Shorty Jangala Robertson ​ Shorty Jangala Robertson ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Shorty Jangala Robertson ​ 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 Maggie Watson Napangardi Also know as: Maggie Napangardi Ross Maggie Watson Napangardi 1925 - 2004 Also know as: Maggie Napangardi Ross ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Maggie Watson Napangardi 1925 - 2004 Maggie Watson began painting at 60 years of age and became the senior female artist at Yuendumu, 300 kilometres north west of Alice Springs by the time of her death some 19 years later in 2004. Located in the southern reach of Warlpiri land, Yuendumu had become the main community in which Warlipri people were settled after the 1950’s. Maggie was a leader amongst a group of women artists who began to challenge the dominance of men’s acrylic painting in the Central Desert region from the mid 1980’s. The emergence of these women in Yuendumu and simultaneously in Utopia (amongst Anamtjerre and Alyawarre peoples) challenged the notion that men were the sole guardians of the visual life of these communities. The historical evolution of the movement of which Maggie was part, began with the encouragement of more permanent painting techniques in the 1970’s in both Yuendumu and Papunya, followed by the introduction of acrylic paints in the 1980’s. As the women artists progressed from painting ritual objects to painting on boards as a source of revenue they gained a wider audience. When the Warlukurlangu Artists cooperative was establishedin Yuendumu in the mid 1980’s, Maggie became the leader of a group of women whose work was included in the community’s first exhibition of at the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs in 1985. Their first commercial exhibition was held in 1987 at Sydney’s Hogarth Galleries and in the following year Maggie’s paintings were included in the exhibition Yuendumu, Paintings of the Desert at the South Australian Museum. This exhibition toured nationally and internationally. Foremost amongst the major themes depicted by Maggie Watson, Dorothy Napangarti Robertson and other female Yuendumu artists is the important Warlpiri women’s Dreaming of the Karntakurlangu. This epic tale recounts the travel of a large group of ancestral women, the hair string belts they made to carry their babies and possessions, and the magical emergence of digging sticks which, quite literally, thrust themselves out of the ground before the women during the Dreaming, thereby equipping them for their vast travels. As the women danced their way across the desert in joyous exultation they clutched the digging sticks in their outstretched hands. Dancing in a long line they created important sites and encountered other Dreamings. Hundreds of these women travelled on the long journey first toward the east, then to the north, then south collecting plants and foods with both medicinal and ceremonial uses. They visited many sites, resting at some, going underground at others and later re-emerged morphing into different, sometimes malevolent, beings. These powerful ancestral women were involved in initiation ceremonies and used human hair-string spun and rubbed with special red ochre and fat as part of their magic just as women do to this day when performing ceremonies that connect them with their Jukurrpa. The digging sticks are regarded as symbolically manifest as desert oaks growing in their homeland near Mina Mina, a central location for much of the story that relates to Warlpiri lands west of Yuendumu. It is this narrative that preoccupied her work and was most superbly illustrated, in what is considered her Magnum Opus, Digging Stick Dreaming 1995. Maggie Watson’s paintings are characterised by the linear precision created by dots applied in alternating bands of colour. When viewed in varying arrays across the canvas these meticulously applied textured striations impart a rhythmic trancelike quality thereby evoking the movement of lines of women as they dance, and their repeated chanting during ceremony. Maggie’s willingness to adopt the shiny surfaced acrylic paints was founded on the Warlpiri’s response to shimmering surfaces associated with beauty and reminiscent of the ancestral beings completely beautified upon their original emergence. In time her use of flamboyant colour and richly textured surfaces became the hallmark of her paintings. Her works were colourful but never garishly so, and often featured subtle pastel shades such as soft yellows, splashes of a luscious turquoise and the clear blue reminiscent of a summer sky. Her best works had a strong painterly quality and, while meticulously executed, they imparted that joyous sense of abandon. Maggie Watson created paintings for 15 years but was never a prolific artist. She worked only sporadically for the Warlurkulangu Art Centre in Yuendumu after the formative period in the late 1980’s. The vast majority of her limited output was produced while working with Peter van Groessen, the husband of one of her daughters who maintained studio working spaces in Adelaide and Alice Springs from the beginning of the 1990’s. These paintings were principally sold through Kimberley Art in Melbourne and the Chicago Gallery that they maintained. They include almost all of her larger works that have been responsible for her growing reputation since 2000 as the most successful Aboriginal female artist after Emily Kngwarreye. Her works have been featured in many major collections, including The National Gallery of Australia and the Musee National Des Arts Africain et Oceaniens in Paris. Maggie was a major participant in the 7 x 3 m canvas that was commissioned in 1991 and exhibitied in the 1993 European touring exhibition Aratjara - Australian Aboriginal Art, curated by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen in Dusseldorf, West Germany, and her work was included in the Australian National Gallery Warlpiri collection commissioned in 1992. Following her death Maggie Watson’s work was exhibited in the major exhibition Colour Power – Aboriginal Art Post 1984, at the National Gallery of Victoria. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Maggie Napanagardi Watson’s work first appeared at auction in 1996. By 2000 nine works had been offered with eight sold at an average price of $18,295. While her sales during the last decade have exceeded $2 million her works have only appeared at public auction 79 times with a 66% success rate and these have ranged in price from as little as $3,035 for a small 45 x 60 cm work at Shapiro auctioneers in 2003 to $348,000 for Mina Mina Dreaming 1995 which, broke the artists record in 2008 against a backdrop of overall market decline. This sale relegated Digging Stick Dreaming 1995 into second place. Both were commissioned works purchased through Peter van Groessen and originally sold through Kimberley art in Melbourne. While Maggie Watson's status as an artist of supreme interest is undisputed, her sales results have been seriously compromised by the repeated appearance Digging Stick Dreaming 1995 , which has been described her Magnum Opus. When originally sold at Lawson~Menzies in November 2005 it sold to a Rod Menzies consortium for $216,000 including buyer's premium, her highest recorded price at the time. It sold again two years later for her current second highest recorded price, $336,000 but has appeared several times since. In fact it has been sold and resold 5 times and this one work set her second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth highest recorded prices at public auction. Maggie's reputation as one of the most important female artists of the Central Desert was essentially established by non-art-centre provenanced works, by the galleries that originally sold them, and by the institutions that have included these works in thematic exhibitions. The value of her paintings have increased dramatically since 2000 when large canvases, produced during the mid 1990s based on her Bush Mushroom stories, sold for roughly $20,000. In March 2014, for example, a major rendition of Mushroom Dreaming 1995 with art centre provenance sold for $66,000 at Deutscher and Hackett's sale of the Ainsworth Collection (Lot 86). Though listed as her 14th highest result, it was the highest price recorded for a work created for Warlurkurlangu Artists, her community art centre. Maggie Watson had an excellent success rate of 68% without ever seeing a dip in the appreciation of her works at auction until 2012, when only four works were offered and not one sold. In 2013 only two sold of four offered. 2007 was her best year with seven of eight works selling for a total value of $556,200. In that year, the only object that appeared was a lovely painted coolamon which achieved $14,400 in Lawson Menzies November sale (Lot 42). However 2008 saw her record topple. While only three of the six works offered were successful at sale (with her success rate falling by 3%), her total sales topped $2 million for the first time. She was the sixth best performing artist in 2009 and eighth in 2010. Her stocks have been on the slide since 2012, yet she remains second only to Emily Kngwarreye amongst female Aboriginal artists, an altogether remarkable fact given the sheer number of female artists who have emerged since the eary 1990s. This fact alone should have all those interested in ‘investment’ sit up and take note. Watson’s major works will continue to command premium prices over works by other female artists of the region and period. Given their rarity, they could continue to set auction records at each subsequent offering. Her medium sized works are most definitely undervalued in the current market and, due to their relative scarcity, should be seriously considered by anyone intent on putting together an important collection. Her presence would not only significantly enhance the representation of female desert artists, but would also address any overabundance of works by the more prolific Eastern Anmatjerre and Alyawerre artists from Utopia and the surrounding regions as well as the burgeoning Pintupi and Pitjantjatjara women’s art emanating from the Western Desert and beyond. 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 Langaliki Lewis ​ Langaliki Lewis ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Langaliki Lewis ​ 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 Betty Carrington ​ Betty Carrington ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Betty Carrington ​ 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 Cooee Art to relaunch as Cooee Art Leven Art Daily Jun 29, 2023 SYDNEY.- Australia’s oldest Indigenous gallery Cooee Art today announces that it will relaunch as Art Leven, ushering in a new era for the gallery under the stewardship of long-term owner and Director Mirri Leven. Although the gallery will remain focused on First Nations art, in this new chapter as Art Leven, the gallery will exhibit non-Indigenous alongside First Nations artists, through specially curated individual projects. The new gallery vision will focus on transparent dialogue, offering an opportunity beyond the ordinary commercial relationship between artist and gallery, fostering an environment of openness and direct exchanges between artists. Art Leven will work directly with First Nations curators, art centres, and represented artists. Art Leven will unveil its inaugural exhibition in line with this new programming focus on Thursday 27 July 2023 within its bespoke gallery space, located in Gadial Country, Sydney Redfern. Curated by Gadigal artist Kate Constantine (Konstantina), the exhibition features work created in the Northern Territory Warlpiri community of Lajamanu, organically exploring themes around the craft of landscape painting and ways of seeing and translating land and Country. VIEW FULL ARTICLE Previous Next Featured artworks Quick View BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 Quick View JOANNE CURRIE NALINGU - FLOW STATE Price AU$25,000.00 Quick View BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Price AU$29,700.00 Quick View JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 Quick View MINNIE PWERLE - AWELYE - ATNWENGERRP Price AU$25,000.00 Quick View JACK DALE - WANDJINAS AT LONDRA Price AU$25,000.00 Quick View ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - AHARLPER COUNTRY Price AU$25,000.00 Quick View FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 Quick View BILL TJAPALTJARRI WHISKEY - ROCKHOLE NEAR THE OLGAS Price AU$3,500.00 Quick View YALA YALA GIBBS TJUNGURRAYI - TINGARI AT KARRKURRUNTJINTJANA Price AU$11,400.00 Quick View NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00

Nancy Nyanjlpayi Chapman Nancy Nyanjlpayi Chapman ​ ​ Hi my name is Shirley I was Born on Bathurst Island. Since then I grow up older and at the age of 16 years and I went to school called s.t.s on Bathurst Island.That was back in 1985,1986 and so on, and then i finished school and found a partner. He was from Pirlangimpi. Then I went to live with him and I have 6 children. After growing up my children I then went to look for job working at the art centre called Munupi. 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 Mick Tjapaltjarri Namarari ​ Mick Tjapaltjarri Namarari ​ ​ ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Mick Tjapaltjarri Namarari ​ During a career that spanned almost three decades Mick Namarari became a towering presence, whose variety of subjects and diversity of stylistic approaches kept him at the forefront of Western Desert painting. Geoff Bardon noted his ability as a painter from the earliest days of the movement when he  'could often unexpectedly be found late at night working away at his meticulous and marvellous paintings' (Johnson 2000: 191). Much later, he was to play a quiet but decisive role in instigating the Papunya Tula art movement’s increasing ethereal minimalism of the late 1980’s and 1990's and in doing so significantly fueled the international reputation of Australian Aboriginal art, thereby earning himself an ‘incomparable place’ in Australian art history. During his childhood, Namarari traveled with his parents to many of the key sites through Pintupi country until a tribal raiding party speared and killed his father and his mother threw herself into a fire in grief. After recovering his mother, Maiyenu, and her two children were cared for by other family members who set up camp at Putati Spring south west of Mount Leibig. Namarari later attended school in the mission at Hermannsburg. He worked in the cattle industry at Tempe Downs, near Areyonga, and at Haasts Bluff, where he married his first wife. During this time he would often ‘go bush’ for extended periods, taking just a spear and a womera to hunt for food. Older Pintupi men taught him the songs and ceremonies associated with his childhood journeying and, after initiation into manhood, he was given the responsibility for maintaining the knowledge and ceremony of many ancestral sites. Resettled at Papunya, and serving on the community council with Johnny Warangkula and Nosepeg Tjupurrula in its early tumultuous days, Namarari’s ability as a painter was noted by Geoff Bardon’s from the outset of the modern desert art movement. Driven to paint, regardless of the materials at hand, his early paintings were closely tied to narrative. Symbolic designs were painted, often on a rich, earthy background, with a sharpness of line that imbued them with a remarkable clarity. The key formal elements provided the basis for his later works as he constantly explored and expanded upon their aesthetic potential. He would unravel endless variations on one Dreaming story by focusing on different aspects of its telling.  His inventive array of techniques demonstrated a singular and personally felt perspective that always managed to take his audience by surprise. In 1978 he played the leading role in Bardon’s film Mick and The Moon. The film told of an Aboriginal man who believed he owned the moon, but had a duty to paint ceremonial pictures in order to make this belief become true. His moon paintings of this period have an omniscient perspective, revealing a cosmology where the human world and the landscape are continuous with each other rather than being defined against each other, as in the European tradition. He depicted landscape by 'invoking a whole cosmology, a religious morality and an ethics of social interaction' (Clark 2005: 62). This broader spiritual meaning shaped the way Namarari perceived relations between the human and non-human world. Visually this consciousness manifested itself in Namarari’s art, most especially in his non-figurative and non-iconographic paintings, exemplified by his Mouse Dreaming paintings, in their representation of space. The hypnotic minimalist fields of dots suggest the 'microscopic life of the desert' (Johnson 2000: 191), and the intimate placement of the artist within his subject, not apart from it. One of the few artists to stay on in Papunya after the Pintupi exodus of the early 1980’s he finally settled at Nyunmanu near Marnpi with his second wife Elizabeth Marks Nakamarra and their three children. However the need to support his young family through his burgeoning art practice saw Namarari move in to Kintore and travel more frequently to Alice Springs from the late 1980’s onward, by which time his paintings were increasingly sought after by galleries. Mick Namarari was credited as having played the decisive role in propelling Papunya Tula art away from the edifice of Tingari cartography towards the ethereal minimalism of the 1990’s. In 1989 he attended the opening of the exhibition Mythscapes at the National Gallery of Victoria and two years later his triumph in winning the 8th National Aboriginal Art Award in 1991 became an important milestone both personally, and for the Papunya Tula Artists company. His stature grew following solo exhibitions at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1991 and 1992 and with Utopia Art Sydney in 1993 and 1994. These exhibitions demonstrated his capability for ongoing innovation and also proved the viewing audience’s appreciation for the distinct individuality of his signature style. By this time, Namarari had condensed his symbolism into a densely worked abstract code that reflected the microscopic life of the desert amid its shimmering contours and ephemeral shifting light. Dazzling surfaces, often composed of subtle currents of yellow and white fingertip stipple, suggested an emerging form, an invisible ancestor palpably present within the meticulously applied paint. While Namarari remained loyal to Papunya Tula artists he painted a number of major works outside of the company during the mid to late 1990’s most importantly several masterpieces for independent dealer Steve Nibbs, that found their way in to important galleries and collections. During his later years, Namarari helped transmit to a new generation of rising artists, the knowledge and techniques that play a crucial role in the regeneration of Aboriginal culture to this day. He increasingly returned to his outstation at Nyunmanu, close to his original homelands. It had been his 'yearning for return to country' (Kean 2000), that had always informed his work. It was that loss of contact with country that had imparted such a raw power and poignancy to those early Papunya paintings, prompting Bardon to act so courageously in the face of bureaucratic opposition. Namarari lived to see the fruition of that yearning, enabling his Pintupi clansmen to return to their country, supported by art sales and favourable changes in government policies. The exodus was documented in the film Benny and the Dreamers 1993, in which Namarari describes his first encounter with Europeans. Within the framework of that vital tethering to country, Namarari’s career moved through many phases, due in part to his custodianship of many totemic sites, but also largely to his unique and ingenious approach. He was a quiet character, Bardon later recalled, and 'of the briefest conversation' (Bardon, 2004). He much preferred to remain at home with his wife and many adopted children rather than travel the circuit of openings and awards. In his last works, narrative and abstraction had found their perfect synthesis. He was acknowledged as an ever-evolving master, whose consistency and brilliance was confirmed by the presence of his work in galleries and collections in Australia and around the world. Mick Namarari was the first recipient of Aboriginal Australia’s highest cultural accolade, the Australia Council’s Red Ochre Award, presented to him in 1994. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Works by this artist in the market fall in to three distinct historical periods. His early 1970s boards, while drawing attention from ethnophiles, have achieved reasonable results but have failed to shine alongside works by his more illustrious contemporaries of that period. Only two of these appear in his top ten results despite a number of highly accomplished pieces, including his magnificent Untitled 1972 painting offered for sale at Sotheby’s in July 2003 selling for only $38,100 (Lot 107). Namarari appears to have painted very few works between 1973 and the mid 1980s having left the Papunya community and settled further west in a move that preceded the Pintupi exodus in the late 1970s and his own move to Walungurru. His paintings of the mid 1980s are generally looser than his early boards, though they failed to abandon structure completely. On occasion, works from this period feature figurative elements, as in his untitled 1987 work sold at Christie's in 2005 for just $21,510 (Lot 207). The image of a large snake entering a cave site appears clumsy in comparison to his later works. The same is true for other more formal works of the period, including Whirlwind Dreaming 1986, sold at Sotheby’s in 1998 (Lot 51). During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Namarari returned to a style reminiscent of his early work, painting a large number of works in a more linear style with sites depicted as concentric and radiating lines. Despite the quality of these often powerful and well constructed images, they have proved to be unsuccessful in the market, a majority either failing to sell or only barely reaching their low estimates. Measuring 183 x 153 cm and selling for $63,000 (at an estimate of $30,000-50,000 in Sotheby's June 2000 sale (Lot 117)), Tjakaalpa at Putjana 1991 was one of the most successful of these works. Since 2005, only three records have entered his top ten results. His record was set in 2013, when an untitled work created in 1994 depicting rain at Nyunmanu sold for $219,600. It was featured in Bonham's lavish sale of the Laverty collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The previous record, Tjunpinpa (Small Mouse Dreaming) (sold at Sotheby’s for $210,000), had stood for a decade. Until they abandoned Aboriginal art salesin Australia in 2013, Sotheby’s was most strongly identified with Namarari’s paintings, having sold 125 works for a total of more than $2 million. His best years at auction were shortly after his death in 1998; between 1999-2000 forty paintings sold for a total of $843,660 at a clearance rate of 71%. In fact, between 1994 and 2000 Namarari’s clearance rate was 79% while it dropped to just 45% between 2001 and 2010.  Not a single work in his top 20 results was painted between 1973 and 1990. In 2016, although of the 16 works on offer only 4 sold, he reached good numbers with one work selling for $64,328 and another for $55,751. In 2017, however, not a single work of the seven on offer ended up selling. Since 2000, by far his most popular paintings have been those created toward the end of his life. This phenomenon seems to have been sparked by the sale of a major black and white work originally commissioned by Steve Nibbs of Yapa Art in Alice Springs in 1998. The painting, exhibited in ‘The White Show’ at William Mora Gallery in 1998, was offered for sale at Deutscher Menzies in 2000. With an estimate of $35,000-50,000, it was knocked down for just $28,200 including buyer’s premium. Offered for sale just one year later at Sotheby’s with an estimate of $50,000-70,000 it sold for $110,500. The highest prices achieved for Namarari works since then have all been for similar works, featuring ethereal fields of dots. The best of these paintings work on a number of visual and aesthetic levels and will continue to attract high prices. Yet his linear works created from 1985 to 1995 are highly accomplished and currently vastly underrated. A lot of these are very good paintings, and would seem to represent a fantastic opportunity for collectors and investors, given Namarari’s status as one of the greatest and most significant of all Aboriginal desert painters. 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. 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