Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri is regarded as one of the most significant Australian artists of the later 20th century. He was one of the founders of the Western Desert Art Movement and is perhaps the best known of the 'painting men' who emerged at Papunya, a settlement ca. 250 km north-west of Alice Springs, in the early 1970s. A prolific artist, his paintings began to attract widespread interest in the 1980s, and since then his works have appeared in numerous national and international exhibitions, and have been acquired by all the major Australian public galleries. In 1988 he became the first Indigenous artist to be accorded a solo exhibition in Europe, when his works were exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in London.
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was born on Napperby Station, north-west of Alice Springs, in the early 1930s. He spent his childhood on Napperby and nearby Hamilton Downs Stations and subsequently worked as a stockman on cattle stations near Alice Springs until the mid 1960s, when he settled at Papunya. Although he was already a skilled wood carver, his artistic career did not really begin until he took up painting at Papunya in the early 1970s, under the initial tutelage of artist and teacher Geoffrey Bardon. As with the other Papunya artists, his works are particularly significant in that they communicate the custodianship of the Western Desert peoples over their Dreaming narratives and places, and reflect an affirmation of their culture.
Sadly, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri died on the day that he was to have been presented with the Order of Australia for his services to art and to the Indigenous community.
