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Charlie Tjapangati |
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| Charlie Tjapangati is a senior Papunya Tula artist and one of the leading Papunya Tula Pintupi artists whose artworks are sought after by collectors worldwide. For Charlie Tjapangat and all Papunya Tula Artists creating paintings relief them from the hardship of Papunya, a centralised government settlement established as a marshalling point for Aboriginal people displaced from their traditional lands by cattle farmers, including the Pintupi, Anmatyerre, Luritja and Warlpiri. In 1972 the artists established their own company, Papunya Tula, which derives its name from both the settlement's name and one of the hills in the area, Tula, a Honey Ant Dreaming site. In the late 1970s and early '80s, after the establishment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, many people moved back to their traditional homelands, to country as far west as Kintore and Kiwirrkura in Western Australia. In the 1980s the movement flourished and other desert communities such as Utopia, Yuendumu and Balgo began to produce works of art for an outside audience. In 2000, the Art Gallery of NSW held an exhibition, curated by Hetti Perkins, for the Sydney Olympic Games Arts Festival. This exhibition was to firmly place the movement on the national, and international, stage. For a period of several months (27 November 2007 to 3 February 2008), the National Museum of Australia exhibited a collection of Papunya paintings from the first few years of the movement. Most of the works displayed in the collection have not been seen before by the general public as most of these paintings were bought by (the now defunct government agency) the Aboriginal Arts Board of the 1970s-1980s. The exhibition contains some of the most priceless and earliest works by the first generation, senior Papunya painters. These paintings were previously displayed in government offices and embassies. |
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