LONG JACK PHILLIPUS TJAKAMARRA

BORN: 1932
REGION:  PAPUNYA- NORTHERN TERRITORY
LANGUAGE GROUP: WARLPIRI/ PINTUPI

View Long Jack’s artwork here

Long Jack  was born at Kalipinya, an important Rain Dreaming site North-East of Kintore. In the 1950s, Long Jack Phillipus and his whole family came to the settlement of Haasts Bluff where he started to work as a labourer and stockman.

He married Georgette Napalduarra and they have two sons and three daughters and many grandchildren. When Papunya was established in 1959, Long Jack moved there and worked as a councillor and school yardman. With Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, Long Jack Phillipus was selected by the men in Papunya to paint the ‘Honey Ant Dreaming’ mural on the school wall.

It was the first ever project done by Aboriginal men on a public building in Papunya, which resulted in the birth of the Western Desert Art movement. Long Jack became a foundation member of Papunya Tula Artists. In 1984, he was ordained as a Lutheran pastor.

Long Jack paints the Possum, Man, Fire and Water and other Dreamings from the Mt Singleton area.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

1971, 1987 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; 1971 Art Gallery of Western Australia, Pert; 1974 Anvil Art Gallery, Albury, 1974 Art of Aboriginal Australia, touring exhibition Canada, Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada Ltd; 1974 Festival of Perth; 1976 Aboriginal Australia, Second touring exhibition, Canada; 1977 Christ College, Oakleigh, Victoria; 1980 Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin; 1983 Mori Gallery, Sydney; 1984 Papunya and Beyond, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs; 1985 The Face of The Centre: Papunya Tula Paintings; 1987 Circle Path Meander, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; 1987 A selection of Aboriginal Art owned by the ANU, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian Capital Territory; 1988 ANCAAA and Boomalli, Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, Sydney; 1988 Recent Aboriginal painting, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; 1989 Mythscapes, Aboriginal Art of the Desert, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; 1989 Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne; 1989 A Myriad of Dreaming; Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne; 1990 L’ete Australien a’ Montpellier, Musee Fabre Gallery,Montpellier, France; 1990 From the Centre to the Sea, Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, Chippendale, Sydney; 1991 The Painted Dream; Contemporary Aboriginal Paintings from the Tim and Vivien Johnson Collection, Auckland City Art Gallery and Te Whare Taonga; 1992 Aoteora National Gallery, New Zealand; 1993 Tjukurrpa Desert Dreamings, Aboriginal Art from Central Australia; 1993 Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; 194 ‘Walkabout World Vision’, Melbourne; 1994 Power of the Land, Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art, National Gallery of Victoria; 1997, 2000 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs; 1998, 1999 Chapman Gallery, Canberra; 1999 Flinders Art Museum Flinders University, Adelaide; 1999 Chapel off Chapel Gallery, Melbourne; 1999, 2000 Aboriginal Art Galleries of Australia, Melbourne; 2001 Aboriginal Art, Melbourne.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Holmes a Court Collection; Museums and Art Galleries of Northern Territory, Darwin; University of Western Australia Anthropology Museum, Perth; Artbank, Sydney; Galeria R, Poznan, Poland; The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, U.S.A.; and private and corporate collections around the world.

AWARDS

1983 Northern Territory Golden Jubilee Art Award; 1984 Alice Springs Art Prize.

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