Wentja Napaltjarri | 1945-2021 - Untitled AEWMN2-10-7381PG

Provenance: Purchased for $16,000 in 2010 from Art Equity

Price: $27,500

ArtVals welcomes genuine offers through the Enquire/Acquire button

Wentja Napaltjarri:

1945 – 2021 (Indigenous Australian)
Language Group: Pintupi
Country: Malparingya, near Tjukurrla, Western Australia

Wentja Napaltjarri: Custodian of Dreaming, A Master of Western Desert Painting

Wentja Napaltjarri is a senior Pintupi artist from the Western Desert and a highly respected figure in the canon of contemporary Aboriginal art. Born circa 1945 at Malparingya, near the sacred site of Tjukurrla in Western Australia, she is the daughter of renowned Papunya Tula artist Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi and inherited deep cultural and ceremonial responsibilities linked to her father’s Country.

Having grown up in the bush before the establishment of permanent settlements, Wentja embodies a rare firsthand knowledge of pre-contact life in the desert. This intimate connection to Country, ceremony, and kinship is vividly present in her work, which draws upon the ancestral stories and sacred sites around the Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) associated with her father’s lands.

Wentja began painting in the 1990s, joining the Papunya Tula Artists cooperative. Her practice quickly gained recognition for its meticulous dotting techniques, refined compositional structure, and profound spiritual resonance. Her canvases often depict significant sites like Tjintjintjin and Marrapinti, and her work is layered with encoded meanings known only to initiated women.

Her paintings have featured in major group exhibitions across Australia and internationally, representing not only her own vision but the strength and continuity of Pintupi women’s art. Wentja’s contribution has been instrumental in the broader appreciation of female voices within the Western Desert movement — a lineage often overshadowed by its early male pioneers.

Over three decades, her paintings have been acquired by key public and private collections, appreciated both for their visual strength and cultural gravitas. As one of the few surviving first-generation women painters of her era, Wentja holds a unique and enduring place in Australian art history.

Major Collections Holding Wentja Napaltjarri’s Work:

• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

• Artbank, Australia

• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

• Laverty Collection, Sydney

• Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth

• Holmes à Court Collection, Perth

• Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia

• Various private collections in Australia, Europe, and the United States