Born Ilpitirri near Mt Denison, c.1927. An infant survivor of the Coniston massacre (1928), Billy grew up under the care of Clifford Possum 's mother at Napperby and was initiated there. He then worked at Napperby station as a stockman and later as a cook in the Papunya settlement kitchen. At Papunya he also worked with the Pintupi people brought in from the west, helping them to adjust to the settlement lifestyle. He was a Papunya Town Councillor in the ’70s and an outstanding wood carver before he took up painting. One of founders of the Papunya painting movement. Billy, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa , Long Jack Phillipus among others painted the Honey Ant Dreaming design on the Papunya school wall which helped set the painting movement in motion. Energetic campaigner in the outstation movement and one of first to shift to his own outstation west of Papunya. His country lies west of Napperby station around Mt Denison, Ilpitirri and Yuendumu. His subjects were almost always Budgerigar and Wild Potato Dreamings for this region. Billy was a Central Australian delegate to the N.A.C. during the ’70s; Aboriginal Arts Board member 1975-79 and Chairman of Papunya Tula Artists during the ’70s. Billy visited the USA for the opening of the Dreamings: Art of Aboriginal Australia exhibition in New York in 1988, also Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and the All Black Festival in Africa with the Aboriginal Arts Board. He occasionally painted in town for the Centre for Aboriginal Artists, but mostly lived with his family on his outstation at Ilili near Papunya. He and his wife Intinika had two sons and two daughters, all of whom he taught to paint.
- Writers:
- Johnson, Vivien
- Date written:
- 1994
- Last updated:
- 2011
