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MICK NAMARARI TJAPALTJARRI CIRCA 1926-1998 WATER DREAMING IN THE SANDHILLS 1971 29 by 29 cm Synthetic polymer powder paint on composition board Provenance: Painted at Papunya in 1971 Collection of Geoffrey Bardon Sotheby's Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 26 June 1999, Lot 23 Private collection, Melbourne This painting was originally sold with accompanying descriptive notes and annotated diagram by Geoff Bardon. The notes read in part: 'An exquisitely simple sandhill configuration, with a yellow ochre line representing the water motif, and the short straight lines as a hatching technique with dotting depicting the sandhill landscape itself. Mick Namarari was a regular visitor with Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, both village councillors with immense curiosity and enthusiasm to paint designs. They were both important men in the Aboriginal community at Papunya.' The size of the composition board indicates that this is probably one of the floor tiles that Bardon recalls being painted by Pintupi men at the very beginning of the Papunya painting movement. Bardon recalls that 'at this time workmen were putting new lino tiles into many of the European houses at Papunya. Old tiles were stacked outside the homes to be taken away and dumped. They were 30 cm square The Pintupi began bringing these to the flat and asking for paint.' Bardon, G. Papunya Tula: Art of the Western Desert, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1991, p.26).