Born around 1938 at Watulka, south of the modern Kiwirrkura community, Ningura Napurrula was married to the late Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi with whom she moved to Papunya in the early days of the settlement. In 1996 she was part of a group of elderly women from Kintore and Kiwirrkura who began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in their own right. Characteristic of her work is a strong dynamism and rich linear design-compositions created with heavy layers of acrylic paint.
She participated in an initial Papunya Tula Artists exhibition in 1996 and featured in several group shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin in 1999. She had her first solo exhibition with William Mora Aboriginal Art in 2000, and participated in the impressive Kintore Women’s Painting for the Papunya Tula retrospective at the Art Gallery of NSW (1999).

One of Ningura’s paintings is also featured on an Australian stamp and was one of the eight Aboriginal artists selected to paint the
ceilings and façade for the new Museum du quai Branly in Paris in 2006.

Sadly Ningura Napurrula passed away in November, 2013.

Collections:
Art Gallery of NSW
Australian Heritage Commission
Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra
Holmes a Court Collection
Museum and Art Gallery of the NT National Gallery of Australia
Museum de Lyon, France.
Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Publications:
Papunya Tula, Genus and Genius, AGNSW, H Perkins and H Fink,

Awards:
2001 Finalist 18th Telstra Art Award
2002 Alice Prize, highly recomended

Individual Exhibitions:
2000 – William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Exhibitions:
2005 – Papunya Tula Artists, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.

Group Exhibitions:
2006 Aboriginal and Oceanic Art Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, France
2004 Mythology and Reality – Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Peintres Pintupi, Galerie DAD, Mantes-la-Jolie, France.
2003 Glen Eira City; Mason Gallery at Japinka WA;
Gabriella Pizzi, Melbourne;
Australian Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Toskansky Place, Prague, Czech Republic;
Masterpieces from the Western Desert, Gavin Gallery, London, UK.
2002 Araluen Art Centre.
2001 Telstra Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory; Pintupi, Alice Springs; Aborigena, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy.
2000 Gabrielle Pizzie Melbourne;
Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of NSW .
1999 Utopia Art Sydney. 1996 – Papunya Tula, Alice Springs. Select Bibliography: Bardon, Geoffrey; Ryan, Judith; Pizzi, Gabrielle; Stanhope, Zara.,
Indigenous Art of the Dreamtime’, United Nations Building, New York, USA
Women’s Body Paint’ and ‘Paint up Big’, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
‘All About Art’, Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne.
1992 ‘Aboriginal Art and Spirituality’, Canberra, Australia
1991 Aboriginal Art’, Australian Embassy, Washington, USA