Friends Night | Alec O’Halloran on Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri

Please join us for our monthly members meet up. This month we have invited author Alec O’Halloran to speak about the work of Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri in the current exhibition Pintupi Way. 

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri was born c 1923 at Marnpi and passed away in Alice Springs in 1998. Namarari was one of the first of the Pintupi to leave his inherited home country in the early 1930s, after the spearing to death of his father, and one of the last to return in the early 1980s, after a life spent balancing stock work with cultural and family duties. Namarari was a pioneer of the Papunya painting movement in the early 1970s and a founding member of Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd in 1972.

Alec began a journey of personal discovery and reconciliation in the mid 1990s, where curiosity about Aboriginal art morphed into a wider interest in Aboriginal culture and history. He is an independent researcher and author with a focus on Pintupi artists of Australia’s Western Desert region. He wrote and published the authorised biography Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri: The master from Marnpi, based on his doctoral thesis at the Australian National University. He co-curated Affection, a recent exhibition of Pintupi women’s art, to celebrate Papunya Tula Artists’ 50th anniversary. Alec’s current writing focuses on Tjapaltjarri’s paintings, exhibitions and events. Alec was commissioned to prepare Namarari’s entry for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His author memoir, The road to Marnpi, appears in the current edition of the Australian Journal of History and Biography (ANU Press). He lives in Sydney.

Friends of the Drill Hall Gallery is kindly supported by Clonakilla Wines and 1980 Chinese Restaurant and Sydney Contemporary. Show your membership card to receive a 15% discount on meals at 1980 Chinese Restaurant.

Image: (left) Portrait of Alec O’Halloran. (Right) MICK NAMARARI TJAPALTJARRI (c1923 – 1998), Untitled (Mouse Dreaming), 1997, acrylic on linen, 183 x 152cm, coming to Pintupi Way. Private Collection. © the artist licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd.