Nora Nyangapa Nungabar (c1919-2016)

Nora (Nyangapa) Nungabar was a Manyjilyjarra woman born near Lipuru, also known as Well 37 on the Canning Stock Route, and remembers her mother looking after her in a hollow in the side of a sandhill. She grew up in the country that became Wells 33-38 on the Canning Stock Route. From an early age Nungabar and her family had encounters with the white men who drove cattle along the route. As a young woman, together with her close friend Nora Wompi, Nungabar followed the drovers north to Balgo Mission, where she settled and raised a family.

Nungabar eventually relocated to her homelands at Kunawarritji, though she continued to travel regularly between Kunawarritji, Balgo and Mulan. Through her artistic career, painting with both Warlayirti and Martumili Artists, Nungabar earned critical acclaim for her remarkably expressive, evocative style. Many younger artists described having learned to paint by watching her example. Nungabar was a custodian of a great deal of cultural knowledge about the Kunawarritji area, much of which is referred to in her extensive body of work. Nungabar’s paintings have been exhibited in galleries internationally and throughout Australia, and acquired by the National Museum of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.