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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  21 Jul 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  141
• Lot Description:
  Tommy Watson
  (born circa 1935)
  Pundi Rockhole (2004)
  synthetic polymer paint on canvas
  bears Irrunytju Arts cat. no. IRRTW04321 verso
  90.5 x 126.6 cm
• Provenance:
  Irrunytju Arts, Western Australia; Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney; Private Collection, Sydney; This painting sold with a Irunytju Arts certificate.
• Notes:
  Tommy Watson is known for his large scale canvases but Pundi Rockhole, 2004, is a relatively intimate and early rendition of country that refers to the Kinyma Kutjarra (Two Sisters Dreaming), one of the major ancestral narratives that unites Anangu communities that stretch across vast distances in the Great Victoria and Gibson Deserts. The Sisters were separated by a strong wind while they were travelling north towards Kaltukatjara (Docker River), creating features of the landscape and freshwater wells as they went. At Kaltukatjara they reunited with their family. Watson was born at Anamarapiti west of the present day settlement of Wingellina; he was raised in the traditional manner, living off the land with his family (his mother having died when he was quite young) and was educated in the law. As with most young men of his generation, Watson became a stockman and worked on a number of cattle stations. He grew to become an elder of the Pitjantjatjra people and commenced painting consistently in the public domain, at the age of about 65, when he settled at Wingellina where the artists cooperative, Irrunytju Arts was established in 2001. He was one of eight Aboriginal artists to be commissioned to create a ceiling piece for the MusŽe du quai Branly, Paris, that opened in 2006. For related early paintings by the artist, see Wulpa, 2004, in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, illustrated in Cumpston, N, with B. Patton, Desert Country, Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2010, p.145; Anamarapiti, 2002, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, in Ryan, J. (ed), Colour Power: Aboriginal Art post 1984, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2004, p.81; and Wipu rockhole, 2004, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, illustrated in Perkins, H. and M. West (eds.), One Sun, One Moon: Aboriginal Art in Australia, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2007, p.28. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$14,000 - 18,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.