Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri

Who is Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri?

Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri, is one of Australia's best-known artists of the Western Desert Art Movement, Papunya Tula.

His mother was killed in the Coniston Massacre in 1928; his father was away from the camp hunting and survived. Billy was raised on Napperby Station by his auntie, the mother of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. In the 1960s he was working as a cook at Papunya when many of the Pintupi people were brought in from the west. Like Clifford he began his artistic career carving wooden animals for the arts and crafts marketplace. He is credited with being one of the men who painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the wall of the Papunya School at Geoff Bardon's request. He was, in the '70s, one of the first chairmen of Papunya Tula Pty Ltd.

He later moved west to Ilili, a pioneer in the country camp movement, although in his later years he has spent much time in Alice Springs. He travelled to New York in 1988 for the opening of the "Dreamings" show at the Asia Society and, along with Michael Nelson Jagamarra, created a sand painting as part of the exhibition.