OLD WALTER TJAMPITJINPA, Water Story, 1972

OLD WALTER TJAMPITJINPA Pintupi language, c.1910 - 1981 Water Story, 1972 acrylic on composition board 46 x 31 cm (irregular); 68 x 53 cm (framed) bears labels verso: Stuart Art Centre, consignment number 12001, Sotheby's labels, original diagram PROVENANCE Painted at Papunya, Northern Territory in 1972 Stuart Art Centre, Northern Territory, Cat No.12001 (Consignment 12, Painting 1) Private Collection, New York, United States of America Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, Victoria, 26 July 2004, Lot 409 Private Collection, Western Australia thence by descent The Jory Family Collection, Queensland Art Leven, First Nations Fine Art Auction, Sydney, 17 June 2025, Lot 12 Private Collection, Victoria A certificate of authenticity from Stuart Art Centre with an annotated diagram adhered verso ILLUSTRATED Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon, Papunya: A Place Made after the Story (Miegunyah Press, 2004), p.187 Water Story distils Old Walter Tjampitjinpa's compact set of archetypal forms - the waterhole, running water, the cave - sung and depicted as the Water Man throughout his early career. As one of the founding artists of the Western Desert art movement, he was recognized as custodian of the Water Dreaming, and it is this authority, rather than any impulse toward variation, that the painting's composition repeats and reinforces. Illustrated in Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon's Papunya: A Place Made after the Story, Water Story exemplifies this visual economy. Arced shapes across the composition stand for rainbows; ovoid forms symbolize water tjuringas; three white lines at the lower right depict spears; and the lines running through the lower margin render water itself, whether flowing or stagnant, binding land, water and ancestral spirit within a single continuous field. Tjampitjinpa was among Geoffrey Bardon's closest friends and confidants among the painting men at Papunya, and his testimony shaped Bardon's own understanding of the emerging visual language as it took form. Bardon recalled the manner as much as the man: "It was for Old Walter... that I felt a strong affection. He spoke in a garbled and very brief and humble manner, repeating in his paintings the simple, classic Water Man and running water images, quietly, yet with a marvellous concentration." The humility of that manner sat against the depth of what it concealed: "Later he told me that he was the custodian of the Water Dreaming and his many variations on this theme afforded me knowledge of ceremonial sites and special places." Restraint and authority define Tjampitjinpa's legacy in equal measure, and Water Story stands among his masterful early boards - not a historical artefact alone but continuing testimony, a work in which the sacred rhythms of Country, ceremony and story remain legible to those willing to look closely. © WALTER TJAMPITJINPA / Copyright Agency, 2026

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