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Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

AU

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, AO, (c. 1932 – 2002) was an indigenous Australian painter, one of the most collected and renowned artist in Western Desert movement. He was born on Napperby Station about 200 km north-west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). With most Anmatyerr people, his family moved to the east region following the Coniston Massacre in 1928. Clifford Possum had been working as a woodcarver and stockman at different stations across Central Australia, acquiring an impressive luggage of five Western Desert languages, in addition to his native Upper Arrernte, as well as a 'little bit English.' In 1972, Tjapaltjarri became one of the founding directors of Papunya Tula Artists. He soon grew to stand out among the collective's most accomplished and inventive artists, and had been creating works with striking, multi-layered and meticulously rendered visual effects. Together with his brother, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, Clifford was chosen by Papunya Tula Artists to paint a large canvas for 'Desert Dreamers' BBC documentary in 1976. The resulting Warlugulong, a first painting in Possum's late seventies series of monumental canvases, exceeded anything previously done by Papunya Tula painters in size and narrative complexity. Warlugulong, originally purchased by the Commonwealth Bank for just $1200, was auctioned by Sotheby's in July 2007, and sold for AU$2.4 million to the National Gallery of Australia. During the early eighties, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri served as the chairperson of Papunya Tula Artist. In 1988, the Institute Of Contemporary Arts in London organized Tjapaltjarri's first solo exhibition, which served as a retrospective of the contemporary Indigenous Australian art, and became one of the first examples of international art community honoring a living Australian Aboriginal artist. Over the next decade, Tjapaltjarri became the most widely travelled Aboriginal artist of his generation and the ambassador for Indigenous Australian art around the world. In 2002, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri died in Alice Springs – tragically, on the same day he was scheduled to be appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia. Clifford's paintings are in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery Of NSW, National Gallery of Australia, Kelton Foundation, Holmes à Court Collection, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia, Redrock Gallery in Melbourne, and other Australian and international galleries.

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