The streets of Papunya
Subtitle: the re-invention of Papunya painting
By: Vivien Johnson
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Sydney, N.S.W
Language: eng
Number of pages: 239
ISBN-13: 9781742232430
Subjects: Aboriginal Australian Painting; Aboriginal Australian Art; Aboriginal Australian Artists; History; Women painters; Papunya Tula Artists' Company
Description: Some of Australia's most exciting contemporary art comes from the daughters of the ground-breaking Papunya Tula artists of the 1970s, the founding fathers of the desert art movement. The Streets of Papunya is the story of the women painters of Papunya today, rising stars of a new art centre called Papunya Tjupi Arts. Among them are some of the first women in the desert to join the original Papunya art movement, who continue Papunya's rich history as the birthplace of contemporary Indigenous art. Western Desert art expert Vivien Johnson reveals the whole history of Papunya as a site of art production, from Albert Namatjira's final paintings, executed in Papunya days before his death in 1959, through Papunya's glory days of the 1970s and '80s, the dark time when it was known as 'carpetbagging capital of the desert' to its inspirational renaissance, as its leading painters reinvent Papunya painting for the twenty-first century.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.