Ningura Napurrula Biography and CV

View Ningura Napurrula's paintings

Ningura Napurrula (1938 - 2013 dec.) was a Pintupi woman, born in Watulka, near Kiwirrkurra west of Alice Springs, moving to Papunya with her husband Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi in the years after the community was first formed.

Ningura's paintings are characteristically heavily textured with a strong compositional structure, balanced out by the use of linear shapes extending between each circular nexus. The works depict rockhole sites east of Kiwirrkurra, Ngaminya and Wirrulnga (focussing on birth), where hair-string is made into hair-string skirts (nyimparra), to be worn in traditional ceremonies.

In 2003, Ningura's work was featured on Australia Post's international postage stamp, and since 2006 has been incorporated into the ceiling of the Musée du quai Branly, Paris. 

Sadly passing in 2013, Ningura's works are held in many prestigious private, national and international collections, a selection of which are listed below. 

COLLECTIONS

Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Australian Tourism collection Adelaide, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Collection
Alice Springs Art Price Collection , Alice Springs, Central Australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Collection, Australia
Architecture Australia magazine, Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales - Sydney, Australia
Aborigena at the Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy
Australian Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Prague
Gavin Graham Gallery London, United Kingdom
HOOD Museum of Art, The Palace of Japan (Tokyo)
The Harold Mitchell Foundation and the Australia Council, Art Bank, Sydney
Masterpieces from the Western Desert
Museum & Art Gallery Northern Territory Darwin , Australia
National Gallery of Australia - Canberra, Australia
National Gallery of Victoria - Melbourne, Australia
National Museum of Women in the Arts Washington
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Queensland National Art Gallery - Brisbane , Australia
Toskansky Place Prague, Czech Republic
 

EXHIBITIONS 

2018  Delmore Gallery: Utopia Women, Merricks Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia
2016 Ningura Napurrula Solo Exhibition, ReDot Gallery, Singapore
2006  Musee du Quai Branly, Paris
2005  Papunya Tula Artists, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
2004  Mythology and Reality - Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Peintres Pintupi, Galerie DAD, Mantes-la-Jolie, France
2003  Glen Eira City; Mason Gallery at Japingka WA; Gabriella Pizzi, Melbourne; Australian Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Toskansky Place, Prague, Czech Republic; Masterpieces from the Western Desert, Gavin Gallery, London, UK
2002  Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs
2001  Telstra Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory; Pintupi, Alice Springs; Aborigena, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy
2000  William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Gabrielle Pizzie Melbourne; Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of NSW.
1999  Utopia Art, Sydney, NSW

 

AWARDS

2002  Alice Prize, highly recommended
2001  Finalist 18th Telstra Art Award, Australian National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Telstra Award
2002  Australian Post - the Stamps Ningura Napurrula (Pintupi)