Timothy Johnson

(born 1947)

Pini Tjapaltjarri, Papunya, 1983

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Mori Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney

RELATED WORK
Visit to Papunya II, 1983, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 130.5 x 90.0cm, collection of Marianne Baillieu, in Wayne Tunnicliffe and Julie Ewington, Tim Johnson, Painting Ideas, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009, p. 111 (illus.)
Benny Tjapaltjarri and his family at Papunya, 1981, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 45.5 x 59.5cm, private collection, in Wayne Tunnicliffe and Julie Ewington, Tim Johnson, Painting Ideas, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009, p. 106 (illus.)

Tim Johnson began depicting Aboriginal people in his paintings around 1979, using images sourced from magazines. In some cases the images were superimposed on elements of his previous series in which featured geometric patterning. Shortly after, Johnson first travelled to Papunya, taking many photographs of artists painting and standing with their completed paintings. On his return to Sydney he transcribed these photographic images onto small canvases, sometimes painting up to three versions of each photograph.

In 1981 he was appointing acting manager of Papunya Tula Artists when manager Andrew Crocker went on leave. In the two months he spent working for Papunya Tula Artists he was responsible for providing canvases and paints to artists and collecting and cataloguing completed paintings.

Johnson began to collect Aboriginal art over this period and made enduring relationships with several artists, including Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Michael Jagamara Nelson. He also collaborated with them and other artists on joint works, through which he established protocols for such collaborations – cultural and financial - including seeking permission to paint dots in joint paintings.

By 1983 Johnson had begun to place his photographic images of artists painting into open grounds, sometimes with other iconography and later with his own dotting or that of collaborators. This became the basis of his practice through to the end of the 1980s, when his work had become recognised as an important contribution to contemporary Australian art. The exhibition Across Cultures at the Ian Potter Gallery, University of Melbourne in 1993 surveyed Johnson's work over the period, with a specific focus on his collaborations with Indigenous artists. His survey exhibition Tim Johnson - Painting Ideas at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2008 had a similar focus on Johnson's work between 1979-83.

These three paintings chart Johnson's progress through this key period in the development of his art, and represent some of the earliest engagements of non-Indigenous contemporary artists with Indigenous painters.

John Cruthers