Turkey Tolsen Tjupurrula

Born around 1942 in Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff), Northern Territory, Australia, Tolson passed away on August 10, 2001. He began his life in a creek bed under the shade of a tree near Haasts Bluff. Like many Aboriginal people of his time, he worked as a stockman and in construction. In 1959, a cattle drive took him to Mount Leibig, where he was fully initiated into Aboriginal manhood. Tolson belonged to the Pintupi people of the western desert and the Tjupurrula skin group.

In 1961, Tolson moved to the Papunya settlement, working on building the new community and living there with his young family. He joined the local men’s painting group started by school teacher Geoff Barton, becoming one of its youngest members.

In 1990, Tolson painted "Straightening the Spears at Ilyingaunga," now held in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. This work marked a new phase of minimalism in Papunya Tula art. Over the next decade, Tolson occasionally revisited this theme, using variations of dotted lines to represent the irregularities of thin mulyati (acacia) spears.

Turkey Tolson Tjupurrurla’s linear dotted paintings from the last decade of his career have been highly influential in the Western Desert painting movement. His "Straightening Spears" series, which began with a work of the same title in 1990, was part of the groundbreaking exhibition "Aratjara: Art of the First Australians" that toured Europe in 1993-94. According to art historian Vivien Johnson, these paintings have become a prototype for striped paintings that have dominated Pintupi men’s art since the end of the millennium.

The "Straightening Spears" paintings relate to ancestral events in Tolson’s country. Ilyingaungau, a rocky outcrop, was the destination of a large band of men from Mitukatjirri who traveled through Tjukula. They were challenged to a battle by men from the north. After the skirmish, the Mitukatjirri men returned home to conduct ceremonies. The parallel lines of dots symbolize the long strips of timber heated over fire to straighten spears, with the red and yellow dotting evoking the heat of the desert landscape. Johnson suggests the inspiration may have been a striking vertical rock formation at Ilyingaungau.