Old Walter Tjampitjinpa

Old Walter Tjampajimpa (c.1910–1980) was among the earliest painters to join the pioneering Papunya community in the formative years of the Western Desert art movement. A senior Law man and respected custodian of Warlpiri knowledge, he brought to his small boards an immediacy and spiritual force that would later be recognised as foundational to the development of desert painting. Though his career was brief, limited by age and declining eyesight. Tjampajimpa produced a rare body of work that channels ancestral narratives through restrained composition, rhythmic mark-making and a distilled sense of place. His paintings are prized today for their historical significance and scarcity, offering an unfiltered glimpse into the movement’s earliest creative surge. Held in major private and institutional collections, his works continue to attract curators, scholars and collectors who regard them as vital documents of a moment that reshaped Australian art history.

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Old Walter Tjampitjinpa

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