Paddy Japaljarri Stewart Australia (Aboriginal), 1935-2013

Paddy Japaljarri Stewart, born in 1935, was an Aboriginal Australian artist hailing from Mungapunju, situated south of Yuendumu. He served as the chairman of the Warlukurlangu Artists Committee. Stewart was one of the contributors to the Honey Ant Dreaming mural, which was painted on the Papunya school wall in 1971, and is widely regarded as the birthplace of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. During the early 1980s, the residents of Yuendumu began the process of transferring their traditional ochre ground paintings to canvas, and subsequently to doors. In 1983, Stewart, along with four other artists, painted 30 doors of the Yuendumu school with Dreaming designs, forming the Yuendumu Doors. The painted doors aimed to remind the Yuendumu schoolchildren of their country's interconnected sites and responsibilities. The South Australian Museum acquired and refurbished the entire series of Yuendumu Doors after the school's renovation in 1995. A travelling exhibition featuring the top twelve doors toured Australia for three years before the Yuendumu Doors found a permanent home at the South Australian Museum. The Warlukurlangu Artists Association was founded in Yuendumu in 1985, and the cooperative held its first major exhibition that year. In May 1989, Stewart travelled to Paris to produce a painting at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Japaljarri's artwork is one of the most susceptible to fake copies, and was central to one of Australia's earliest art forgery cases. He was also one of the first Aboriginal artists to gain international recognition in the late 1980s. Stewart imparted Jukurrpa (dreaming) art to children, teaching them that painting could be a form of free self-expression. Stewart and Paddy Japaljarri Sims were awarded the $4,000 Telstra Work on Paper Award from the National Aboriginal Art Award (now Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award) in 2001. Paddy Japaljarri Stewart passed away on November 30, 2013.

We have records of art auction sales by Paddy Japaljarri Stewart from 2016 and in total 10 works by the artist have been offered for sale, of which 6 (60%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $7,364 for Wakapatari Jukurrpa (Caterpillar Dreaming) 2009 sold by Leonard Joel in November 2023. No works have been offered for sale this year, and the last sale we have recorded for the artist was in 2023. Works by Paddy Japaljarri Stewart are held by the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of NSW and Art Gallery of Western Australia.