Wentja Morgan Napaltjarri

c. 1945 - 2001

Language Group: Luritja/Pintupi

Country: West of Kintore, Malparinga

Wentja Morgan Napaltjarri was one of the significant painters to emerge from the Western Desert art movement. Born at Malparinga, near Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), in 1945, her paintings are intimately connected to the Country and Tjukurrpa that shaped her life. Malparinga, an important rockhole site, became a recurring subject within her practice.

Wentja’s father, Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi, was a senior Pintupi man and an important figure in the formative years of the Papunya painting movement. As a young woman, Wentja learnt alongside her father and, through him, inherited custodial responsibility for important Tjukurrpa and the ancestral beings and animals embedded within these narratives, including bandicoots, echidnas and goannas. This inheritance provided the cultural foundation from which her own distinctive painting language would emerge when she began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996. The roundel or oval—representing the rockholes and sacred sites of her Country—became a defining motif.   

Wentja’s work has been exhibited in leading Australian and international exhibitions, including the 2003 exhibition Masterpieces from the Western Desert, in London. She is represented in important collections in Australia and overseas including Art Bank Sydney, Homes a Court Collection, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, National Galley Australia, Kerry Stokes and Thomas Vroom Collections National Aboriginal Art and Culture Institute in Adelaide, Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and The Kaplan – Levi Collection, Seattle.

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