(b Central Australia, c. 1934). Australian Aboriginal painter. He worked until he was 36 as a stockman on Napperby pastoral station. In the 1960s he began painting in watercolour in the Europeanized manner of the Aranda school, established by Albert Namatjira in the 1940s. During this time, however, Possum Tjapaltjarri lost the use of his right eye in a riding accident. He was one of the last and youngest people to join the founding group of artists at Papunya settlement in the early 1970s (see ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA, §IV, 1). Most of the original ‘painting men’ were tribal elders, but Possum Tjapaltjarri’s extensive knowledge of the sacred lands, which became the subject of his paintings, and his reputation as a highly skilled and original wood-carver (of boomerangs, small lizards and snakes and other such items for the tourist market) facilitated his admittance to the group. His innovative approach to using acrylic on canvas was manifested in the late 1970s by a series of exceptionally large canvases (often produced in conjunction with his brother TIM LEURA TJAPALTJARRI), illustrating complex, dreaming trails (e.g. Untitled, 2.33*3.60 m, 1979; Los Angeles, Pacific Asia Mus.). In his later (smaller-scale) work he incorporated recurrent visual elements, including his ‘totems’: possums, fire, water, kangaroos and snakes (see ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA, fig. 19). In the mid-1980s Possum Tjapaltjarri left Papunya Tula Artists’ Cooperative, of which he had become chairman, and worked independently on the outskirts of Alice Springs. His work has been exhibited internationally, and in 1990 Possum Tjapaltjarri was the first Australian Aboriginal to be received at Buckingham Palace, London. His wife and son died in 1991, but his daughters, Michelle Possum (b c. 1964) and Gabriella Possum (b 1967) have both launched careers as painters.

• Possum Tjapaltjarri, Clifford
  • Aboriginal Australia, §IV, 1: Contemporary painting and drawing
  • collaboration
    • Leura Tjapaltjarri, Tim