Paddy Stewart Tjapaltjarri

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As a young man Paddy Stewart Tjapaltjarri was a station worker at Mt Allen, Mt Dennison and up the top end. He worked as a chef in Papunya where he was given the nickname of “Cookie”. Paddy commenced painting in 1971 in Papunya and was one of the men who painted the Honey Ant dreaming mural on Papunya school wall.

Paddy also worked at the Yuendumu school teaching important cultural traditions (which included painting, tracking, making wax for sand painting, making boomerangs and dancing) to both aboriginal and non aboriginal children. In 1983 as one of a group of fully initiated men, Paddy painted his Dreamings on twenty of the thirty-six doors of the Yuendumu school.

In 1988 Paddy and five other Warlpiri men from Yuendumu were selected by The Power Gallery, Sydney University, to travel to Paris to create a ground painting installation at the exhibition “Magiciends de la Terre” at the Centre Georges Pompidou. The painting was received with worldwide acclaim.

In 2000 along with Paddy Sims, Paddy Stewart Tjapaltjarri undertook in the production of 30 etchings of the original Yuendumu Doors. The etchings in a set were launched in 2001, winning the 16th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for works on paper.

Paddy Stewart Tjapaltjarri died in 2013.