Willy Tjungurrayi

Willy Tjungurrayi was born around 1930 at Patjantja, southwest of Lake Mackay, and belonged to a closely connected family of influential Pintupi painters. Raised traditionally in the desert by his father’s brother, Charlie Tarawa, he spent his early years living entirely from the land before travelling with relatives to Haasts Bluff in the late 1950s. He later settled at Papunya, where he began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1976. His Country extends across key sites south and west of Kintore, and his authority within the community granted him the right to paint important Tingari narratives associated with those places.

By the 1980s he had become a senior figure among Pintupi artists, known for a disciplined use of earthy colour and for refined linear compositions built from delicate dotting. His later works, characterised by understated tonal shifts and elegant spatial rhythms, reveal a painter of remarkable subtlety. Tjungurrayi returned to Kintore during the homelands movement and remained a respected custodian of cultural knowledge until his passing in 2018.

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Willy Tjungurrayi

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