Born in the desert at the site of Kiwirrkura in the early ’50s, Joseph came into Papunya with the NT Welfare Branch Patrols in the ’60s. Willy Tjunurrayi and others helped to raise him after his father’s death. For a time, he attended school in Papunya and later at Yuendumu. He worked for Yuendumu Council, then the Papunya canteen. He went to live in Balgo for a time, before settling in Kiwirrkura with his wife and three children when the new settlement was established there at the beginning of the ’80s. He began painting for Papunya Tula Artists only in 1987, but secured one of the earliest solo exhibitions organised through Papunya Tula at the Gabrielle Pizzi Gallery in 1989. Joseph travelled to Melbourne for the show, his first time out of Central Australia.
- Writers:
- Johnson, Vivien
Note: primary biographer
- Date written:
- 1994
- Last updated:
- 2011
