Warlugulong
| Warlugulong | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri |
| Year | 1977 |
| Medium | Acrylic paint on canvas |
| Dimensions | 202.0 cm × 337.5 cm (79.5 in × 132.9 in) |
| Location | National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Warlugulong (1977) is an acrylic on canvas painting by Indigenous Australian artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Owned for many years by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the work was sold by art dealer Hank Ebes on 24 July 2007, setting a record price for a contemporary Indigenous Australian art work bought at auction when it was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for A$2.4 million. The painting illustrates the story of an ancestral being called Lungkata, together with eight other dreamings associated with localities about which Clifford Possum had traditional knowledge. It exemplifies a distinctive painting style developed by Papunya Tula artists in the 1970s, and blends representation of landscape with ceremonial iconography. Art critic Benjamin Genocchio describes it as "a work of real national significance [and] one of the most important 20th-century Australian paintings".
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art originated with the Indigenous men of Papunya, located around 240 kilometres (150 mi) northwest of Alice Springs in Australia's Western Desert, who began painting in 1971. The youngest was Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, encouraged by his older brother Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri. A number of the men developed a distinctive style of narrative painting that, beginning around 1976, resulted in the production of several "monumental" works that included representations of both their traditional lands and of ceremonial iconography. Clifford Possum was the first to make this transition commencing with a related painting, also titled Warlugulong (1976), now held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The two images are amongst five that the artist created between 1976 and 1979 that linked the iconography of sacred stories to geographic representation of his country – the land to which he belonged and about which he had traditional knowledge. The artist's images of this period are visually complex, and contain a wide variety of patterns, unified by strong background motifs and structure.
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