Born Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs), c. 1949, Michael first saw white men at Mt Doreen station. Michael lived with family at Haasts Bluff until his parents took him to Yuendumu to attend the mission school. He left school after initiation and worked buffalo shooting on the East and South Alligator Rivers, driving trucks, droving cattle, and in the army before coming back to Yuendumu and then to Papunya to marry his current wife Marjorie Napaltjarri. He came to Papunya in 1976, working for a time in the government store and for the Council, observing the work of the older artists for years before beginning to paint regularly for Papunya Tula Artists in 1983. His parents were both Warlpiri, and his father was a traditional healer in the Yuendumu community. After his father’s death in 1976, Michael painted under the instruction of his uncle Jack Tjupurrula. Michael paints Possum, Snake, Two Kangaroos, Flying Ant, and Yam Dreamings for the area around Pikilyi. In 1984 he won the National Aboriginal Art Award; in 1986 he exhibited in the Biennale of Sydney and was included in The State of the Art , a British art documentary. In 1987 a 27’ painting by Michael Nelson was installed in the foyer of the Sydney Opera House. In 1984 he won the commission for the design of the 196 square metre mosaic in the forecourt of the new national Parliament in Canberra, opened in 1988. His 1985 painting Five Stories appeared on the cover of the catalogue of the Asia Society’s Dreamings exhibition which toured North America in 1988- 90. The artist travelled to New York with Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri for the opening of the show. In 1989 he had his first solo exhibition in Melbourne at the Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi and participated in the BMW Art Car Project by hand-painting an M3 racecar. His wife Marjorie Nelson Napaltjarri also paints, though mainly on the backgrounds of her husband’s large commissions – e.g the Opera House and BMW projects. In 1993 he was awarded the Australia Medal for services to Aboriginal Art and an Artist’s Fellowship from the Visual Art Board of the Australia Council.
- Writers:
- Johnson, Vivien
Note: primary biographer
fishel
- Date written:
- 1994
- Last updated:
- 2012
