The Streets of Papunya

Some of Australia’s most exciting contemporary art comes from the daughters of the ground-breaking Papunya Tula artists of the 1970s, the founding fathers of the desert art movement. Streets of Papunya is the story of the women painters of Papunya today, rising stars of a new art centre called Papunya Tjupi Arts. Among them are some of the first women in the desert to join the original Papunya art movement, who continue Papunya’s rich history as the birthplace of contemporary Indigenous art.

Western Desert art expert Vivien Johnson reveals the whole history of Papunya as a site of art production, from Albert Namatjira’s final paintings, executed in Papunya days before his death in 1959, through Papunya’s glory days of the 1970s and ‘80s, the dark time when it was known as ‘carpetbagging capital of the desert’ to its inspirational renaissance, as its leading painters reinvent Papunya painting for the twenty-first century.

About the Author

Johnson is notable for the publication of several key reference works in the field of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, including Western Desert Artists: A Biographical Dictionary (1995), Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Papunya (2010).