Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri

He was born at Ilpitirri near Mount Denison, was one of Australia's best-known artists of the Western Desert Art Movement, Papunya Tula.{{cite news |last=Tan |first=Monica |date=14 September 2015 |title=Papunya's daughters: Australia's second generation of master dot painters |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/sep/15/papunyas-daughters-australias-second-generation-of-master-dot-painters |newspaper=The Guardian}}{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri |url=https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/papunya-painting-australian-desert/artists-works/billy-stockman-tjapaltjarri |access-date=2024-06-05 |website=National Museum of Australia |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=TJAPALTJARRI, Billy Stockman {{!}} QAGOMA Collection Online |url=https://collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au/creators/tjapaltjarri-billy-stockman |access-date=2024-06-05 |website=collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au}}

Tjapaltjarri's mother was killed in the Coniston Massacre in 1928 and his father was away from the camp hunting and survived.{{Citation |author1=McLean |first=Ian |title=Rattling Spears A History of Indigenous Australian |pages=126 |publication-date=2016 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1-78023-590-5}} Tjapaltjarri was raised on Napperby Station by his aunt, the mother of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. In the 1960s, he was working as a cook at Papunya when many of the Pintupi people were brought in from the west. Like Clifford, he began his artistic career carving wooden animals for the arts and crafts marketplace. He is credited with being one of the men who painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the wall of the Papunya School at Geoff Bardon's request. In the 1970s, he was one of the first chairmen of Papunya Tula Pty Ltd.{{Cite web |title=Mens Ceremony by Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri from Papunya (including artist biography) |url=https://www.aboriginalartstore.com.au/artists/billy-stockman-tjapaltjarri/mens-ceremony-4/ |access-date=2024-06-05 |website=www.aboriginalartstore.com.au}}

His key paintings represent his Dreamings, including those of the budgerigar, spider, wallaby, yam and wild potato. He also painted about men's ceremony and Law.

Tjapaltjarri later moved west to Ilili, a pioneer in the Homelands movement, although in his later years he has spent much time in Alice Springs. He travelled to New York City in 1988 for the opening of the "Dreamings" show at the Asia Society and, along with Michael Nelson Jagamarra, created a sand painting as part of the exhibition.

He spent much of his later life in Alice Springs and died there on 5 September 2015, when a resident at Hettie Perkins Aged Care Home.

Tjapaltjarri's works are in national collections in Australia:

• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
• Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States

• 'The Tjulkurra': Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri, {{ISBN|1-876622-37-7}}.{{Citation |author1=Kreczmanski |first=Janusz B |title=The Tjulkurra : Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri |publication-date=2002 |edition=1st |publisher=J.B. Books |isbn=978-1-876622-37-4 |author2=Stanislawska-Birnberg, Margo, 1943- |author3=Tjapaltjarri, Billy Stockman}}

• Coniston massacre

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Category:1920s births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Australian Aboriginal artists

Category:Artists from the Northern Territory

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