Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri is an elder of the Anmatyerre people of Central Australia and is a senior custodian of their land and Dreaming stories. He was one of the original group of 'painting men' who who emerged at Papunya, a settlement ca. 250 km north-west of Alice Springs, in the early 1970s, and he is regarded as one of the leading artists of the Western Desert Art Movement, or Papunya Tula. His paintings, which depict his traditional Dreaming stories, have gained widespread acclaim and are represented in a number of national and international collections.
Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri was born in ca. 1928 at Ilpitirri, a desert camp near Mt Denison, north-west of Alice Springs. His mother was killed in the Coniston massacre (1928). His father, who had been away from the camp hunting, survived. Billy was raised by his aunt (mother of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri) on Napperby station. He worked as a stockman from the early 1940s until the 1960s, when he settled at Papunya, where Aboriginal people from throughout the Central Australian and Western Desert region were brought to live. In addition to his painting, Billy has also played an active role in community affairs. During the 1970s, he was at various points a Papunya Town Councillor, Central Australian delegate to the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), an Aboriginal Arts Board member, and Chairman of the Papunya Tula Artists Company. He was also a campaigner in the outstation movement, and lived for a number of years on his own outstation west of Papunya. In recent years Billy has lived at Alice Springs.
