Known also as: Ronnie Jampitjinpa

Region: Walungurru (Kintore), Ininti, Alice Springs, NT

Language Group: Pintupi

Born: 1943

- View Paintings by Ronnie Tjampitjinpa

- View Relevant Artists

Born at Tjiturrunya west of Kintore Ranges in Western Australia, Ronnie was initiated into manhood in Winparku, near Lake Mackay in the Northern Territory. After prolonged droughts in the 1950s, he and his family moved, first to Haasts Bluff, then to Papunya.

Here Ronnie began working as a stockman before the family moved to the newly established settlement at Papunya, where he worked at fencing cattle yards.

One of the youngest artists, Ronnie began painting in 1971 with the founding group of Papunya painters, and became an important influence on the outstation movement. Ronnie moved to Walungurru with his family after it was established in 1981. In the early 1980s Ronnie painted only intermittently for Papunya Tula Artists; however, by the late 1980s and early 1990s his distinctive graphic style attracted considerable attention. In these later works, his delicate, dotted Tingari designs have been transformed into bands of colour to dazzling optical effect.

Ronnie Tjampitjinpa’s art is a good representation of the characteristic Pintupi style: repetition of forms, which are geometric, simple and bold, and pigments which are often restricted to four basic colours of black, red, yellow and white. But Ronnie experiments with other colours as well.

He has exhibited widely both within Australia and overseas. Ronnie won the Alice Prize in September 1998 with his painting Tingari Story at Nwirmiminya, 1988. He has held several solo exhibitions, beginning with an exhibition at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1989.

Ronnie has been painting for redrock gallery since 1998. 

Selected Exhibitions:

1982 Brisbane Festival, Brisbane

1983 Mori Gallery, Sydney

1986 Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth

Aboriginal Arts Australia, Canberra

1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1996 Gallery Gabriella Pizzi, Melbourne

1988 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Expo ’88, Brisbane

1991, 1993 Chapman Gallery, Canberra

1991 Australian National Gallery, Canberra

Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, U.S.A.

1992 Aboriginal Artists Agency, Sydney

1992, 1993, 1994, 1995,

1997, 1998 Araluen Arts Centre Alice Springs

1992 Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat

1993 Art Gallery of N.S.W. Sydney

Art Museum, Armidale, N.S.W.

Art Gallery of W.A., Perth

Australian Perspecta

1994 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Utopia Gallery, Sydney

Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Milan & Palermo, Italy

Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany

1995 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne

1996 ‘Dreamings of the Desert’

1998 Jinta Gallery, Sydney

1999 Flinders Art Museum, Flinders University, Adelaide

‘Twenty-five Years and Beyond’

Embassy of Australia, Washington U.S.A.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco U.S.A.

2000 Aboriginal Art Galleries of Australia, Melbourne

2001 Chapel off Chapel Gallery, Melbourne

2000-2006 Group Exhibitions and Permanent Collection, redrock gallery, Melbourne.

2007 June redrock gallery, Group Exhibition, Gallery Grand Opening Beijing, P.R China

2007 July redrock gallery, Group Exhibition China World Exhibition Centre, Beijing P.R China

2007 August redrock gallery, Group Exhibition, Grand Hyatt Hotel,Beijing, P.R China

2007 November redrock gallery, Group Exhibition, International Art Expo, Beijing, P.R China

        2008 July redrock gallery,Beijing, 2nd Gallery Opening, Group Exhibition,  Beijing, P.R China

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

Museums & Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin

Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria

Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs

Robert Holmes a Court

Medibank Court of the Northern Territory, Darwin

Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Darwin

Artbank

Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide

Donald Khan, U.S.A.

Richard Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, U.S.A.

Musee National des Arts Africains et Oceaniens,

Paris, France

Groninger Museum, The Netherlands

Mem Aziz Private Collection

Awards:

1988 Alice Springs Art Prize

 View Paintings by Ronnie Tjampitjinpa

 View Relevant Artists

• Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
  
• Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra
• Mitjili Napurrula