Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula honed skills as a hunter, his eye became a natural scope on detailed landscapes. The Pintupi painter carried that acuity through his development as an artist. After initiation in the wilderness, a right of passage into manhood, he moved to the emerging Papunya settlement, where he worked cattle, built houses and turned out paintings along with some of the earliest Aboriginal painters who were putting pigment to canvas and abandoning the millenia-old practice of depicting images on rock, bark, and other natural surfaces. Tolson lived among the visual storytellers in the earliest days in the modernist movements, and he quickly distinguished himself with signature geometric icons smartly dressed in a gradation of earth tones. He delved into many styles, yet the simplicity of his linear work is a tempered elegance that transcends time, even culture. His work is distinctly indigenous and mid-century modern to any high-end design team across the world. No wonder that his pieces soon became unmistakably Tolson, and he ushered in a new era of minimalism. Turkey Tolson’s work has found homes with collectors worldwide. His knowledge of art, his mastery of English, and most of all his humility, made him a beloved figure in the Papunya art community as a trusted representative selling paintings, and delivering Aboriginal culture, to the outside world.
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