Stumpy Brown Paintings

About Nyuju Stumpy Brown

Date of Birth

1 July 1924

Place of Birth

Canning Stock Route in Ngapawarlu, Western Australia

Other Names

Kumanjayi Brown

First White Contact

Stumpy was 15 years old when she first met a white person.

History

Senior law woman Nyuju Stumpy Brown (1924- 2011) was a custodian for her ancestral site at Ngupawarlu in the Great Sandy Desert. During her art career spanning from the 1980s until 2008 she recreated the desert sites that she knew from her childhood, focusing on the Dreaming stories that belong to Ngapawarlu.

Stumpy Brown developed her skills with other painters at Fitzroy Crossing, painting mostly for the first decade using acrylic paints on paper. The layers of washed colour became a trademark of the painters from the region, and Stumpy Brown used colour as freely as any of the Fitzroy artists. Stumpy Brown laid down blocks of colour in diluted layers which she then built up and blended with adjoining colours. The sweeping motions led to the creation of the waterhole surrounded by desert Sandhills and ultimately to the re-creation of the Ngupawarlu story.

Stumpy Brown was part of the great desert exodus that saw the traditional owners of desert country moving north along the Canning Stock Route into Balgo and the Fitzroy River area of the Kimberley. The desert people brought their strong cultural values with them and many artists like Stumpy Brown continued to celebrate and connect with the ancestral country they had left behind.

Aboriginal Art Status

Collectable artist

Selected Exhibitions

1991       Karrayili – Tandanya, Adelaide
1992       Group Show, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney
1993       Mangkaja Women , Fremantle Art Centre
1993       Images of Power: Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley, National Gallery Victoria
1994       Ngajakurra Ngurrara Minyarti, this is my country, Festival of  Perth Exhibition/ Artplace Gallery, Perth
1995       Kimberley Art, Melbourne
1995       Group Show, Australian Perspectives Gallery, Brisbane
1996       Heritage Commission Art Award , Old Parliament House, Canberra
1996       Group Show, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney
1997       Group Show, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney
1998       Group Show, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London
1999       Ngurrara  Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
2001       Ngurrara Canvas  National Gallery of Australia
2001       Mangkaja Arts Ten Years On Mangkaja’s 10 year Anniversary Show , Tandanya, Adelaide
2002       Group Show, Art Mob Gallery, Hobart
2003       Ten Mangkaja Women, Raft Artspace, Darwin
2003       Wangkatjungka Women, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2003      Big Country (Group Show), Gondwana Gallery, Alice Springs
2004       Telstra Awards, Museum & Art Gallery of NT, Darwin
2004       Wangkatjungka Country, Raintree Gallery Darwin
2004       Art Trade Auction            Darwin
2004       Jila & Tali – Waterholes and Sandhills, Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra
2004       Striking Colours of the Living Desert – Wankatjungka, Country, Walkabout Gallery, Sydney
2004       Big Country (Group Show), Gondwana Gallery, Alice Springs NT
2004     Tali and Jila – Sandhills and Waterholes, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2004       Artists of Wangkatjungka – Stories of Country, Raintree Gallery, Darwin NT
2004       Divas of The Desert, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT
2004       Paintings from Wangkatjungka, Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane QLD
2005       Wangkatjunka Artists: Stories from The Great Sandy Desert, Tandanya, National Aboriginal Cultural   Institute Adelaide, SA
2005       Wangkatjungka, Ladner and Fell Gallery, Melbourne VIC
2005       Wangkatjungka Artists, Walkabout Gallery, Sydney NSW
2006       Wangkatjunka Artists, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney
2006      Wangkatjungka- Artists of the Great Sandy Desert, ART MOB, Hobart
2006       Wangkatjungka Group Exhibition, Helen Maxwell,  ACT
2006       Luminaries of the Desert, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2007       Wangkatjungka Mapping Country, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2008      Nyuju Stumpy Brown, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2009      Desert Rains – Wangkatjungka Artists, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA

Publications

1991       Karrayili; Ten years on, Exhibition Catalogue
1993       Mangkaja, Women’s Exhibition catalogue
1993       Images of Power Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley – Exhibition Catalogue
1994       Ngajakurra Ngurrara Minyarti, This Is My Country Exhibition catalogue
1996       Yirra: Land Law and Language, Strong and Alive, Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre Publication
1998       Jila Painted Waters of the Great Sandy Desert – Video Documentary / SBS Television
2000       Ngurrara Entry / Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art , Oxford University Press & ANU
2000       Karrayili The history of Karrayili Adult Education Centre, IATSIS Canberra
2001       Painting Up Big, The Ngurrara Canvas, Kaltja (Now National Aboriginal Cultural Institute), Tandanya

Read

Stumpy Brown – Ngupawarlu My Country – Exhibition Walk Through By David Wroth

Links

Nyuju Stumpy Brown – Wikipedia
Nyuju Stumpy Brown | National Museum of Australia