Ningura Napurrula facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ningura Napurrula
Born	c.1938 Waltuka, Kiwirrkurra
Died	11 November 2013
Notable work	Wirrulnga Sequence
Movement	Papunya Tula Art
Spouse(s)	Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi

Ningura Napurrula (born around 1938 – died 2013) was an amazing Indigenous Australian artist. She spoke the Pintupi language and came from the Western Desert. Her artwork was famous all over the world!

Some of her most important works include a special painting for the ceiling of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, France. Her art even appeared on an Australian postage stamp!

Her Early Life

Ningura Napurrula was born around 1938 in a place called Watulka. This area is south of Kiwirrkurra in the East Gibson Desert, Western Australia.

Her first trip out of the desert was in 1962. She traveled with her son and husband, Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi, because her son needed medical help at Papunya. They returned to Kiwirrkurra that same year. The next year, Ningura and her family moved again. This time, many Pintupi people were moving because of a very bad drought.

Ningura Napurrula passed away on November 11, 2013, due to kidney disease. Her sons, Morris Gibson Tjapaltjarri and Adam Gibbs Tjapaltjarri, are also painters. Her daughter, Glenys Napaltjarri, is an artist too.

Her Art Career

Ningura Napurrula first started working as an artist by helping her husband, Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi. He was one of the people who started the Papunya Tula Artists group. He painted in a style called Tingari, which was popular with Pintupi men in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Ningura and her family moved to a new settlement called Walungurru. Here, Ningura and her husband's other wives helped him with his paintings.

How Her Art Style Developed

In 1995, Ningura Napurrula joined a women's painting project in Kintore/Haasts Bluff. This is where she created her own special style. She used two main colors and sometimes added other colors. She officially joined the Papunya Tula company in 1996. Ningura and other women artists helped bring new life to the company after many male artists had passed away.

After her husband died in 1998, Ningura started painting even more. Her style was a bit like her husband's, but her art focused on different things. She painted about women's lives, their experiences, and their role in traditional stories. People have compared her work to other Papunya Tula artists like Makinti Napanangka and Inyuwa Nampitjinpa. Ningura was seen as important not just as an artist, but also as someone who protected her community's culture. The colors she used and how she layered paint on the canvas reminded people of how women use body paint in special ceremonies.

At first, Ningura painted about many different things. But later in her career, much of her art focused on a rockhole site called Wirrulnga. This place was very important for birth and women's lives.

During her life, Ningura Napurrula gave her artwork to help start and support the Western Desert Dialysis program. This program brought kidney dialysis treatment to remote communities using a special purple truck. Ningura's artwork was even featured on the side of this truck! At the end of her life, she was able to get treatment from the very program she had helped.

Art Shows and Exhibitions

Ningura Napurrula's art was shown in several group exhibitions in 1999. These shows were in cities like Sydney, Melbourne, and Darwin. Her first solo exhibition, where only her work was shown, was in 2000 at William Mora Aboriginal Art. In 2015, her art was part of a joint exhibition in Singapore with Nanyuma Napagati. Her work has been shown in dozens of other exhibitions around the world.

In 2002, her art became famous across Australia when it was featured on an Australian postage stamp.

Where Her Art is Collected

Ningura Napurrula's art is very popular with collectors. In 2007 and 2008, Australian Art Collector Magazine voted her one of Australia's most collectible artists. Her work is held in many important art galleries. The Art Gallery of New South Wales has several of her pieces as part of a larger collection called Tjukurrpa Palurukutu, Kutjupawana Palyantjanya – which means "same stories, a new way." Other collections that own her work include the National Gallery of Australia.

The Musée du Quai Branly Project

In 2006, Ningura Napurrula and seven other artists (three women and four men) were asked to create new artworks for the ceilings and roof of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. Ningura felt this was the most important moment of her career. She created a huge design on the first-floor ceilings of the museum. This design was based on her earlier work called Wirrulnga, which is in the collection at the National Gallery of New South Wales.

Awards and Recognition

• 2002 - Highly Commended in the Alice Prize