Born in the bush in the vicinity of Tjangimanta, northeast of Kiwirrkurra, Johnny Yungut was the brother of well-known Balgo artist Donkeyman Lee Tjupurrula (b.

circa 1928 - 1990s) with whom he shared country around Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route.

Their parents were Tjititjiti Tjakamarra and Yirtartirri Napaltjarri.

In the early 1950s the family made the long trek into Balgo mission, which they had heard about from other Pintupi travelers.

Johnny's brother and sister stayed on at the mission settlement while Johnny went back out with the rest of the family and returned to the Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) region.

In 1956, Johnny was part of a group of young men who walked to Mt Doreen and Yuendumu, meeting a Welfare Branch patrol led by Ted Evans on their way back to Lappi Lappi rockhole near Lake Hazlett.

It was here, in 1957, that Johnny encountered Donald Thomson, author of Bindibu Country.

This meeting led to the whole party migrating east across the NT border and, in 1958, travelling by camel into Haasts Bluff, where Johnny married his second wife Walangkura Napanangka, daughter of Rartji Tjapangati and lnyuwa Nampitjinpa.

In 1959, they were shifted across with 400 other Haasts Bluff residents to Papunya.

Johnny and Walangkura had six children -three sons: George Angas (b.

1961), Jonathon and Simon, and three daughters: Deborah (Debra) Angas (b.

1964), Katherine (b.

1968) and Lorraine (b.

1974).

Johnny Yungut also helped raise Nosepeg Tjupurrula's son Richard Nosepeg, who began painting his father's Dreamings for Papunya Tula in 2004.

Johnny also had a son Jeffrey with his first wife Mulykuyanja (Titula) Napanangka.

Johnny first appeared on Papunya Tula's books in 1978 under the name of Johnny Angas.

Then he moved away, living at various places and only resumed painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1991 at Kiwirrkurra.

He was thereafter referred to as Johnny Yungut, although according to Jeremy Long the correct wording was probably Yultukunpa, the Pintupi name for a species of Grevillea, and according to David Brooks 'Yungut' is simply an Aboriginal spelling of Angas.

Johnny was the last surviving man of his generation for his local group area.

As befits his age and ritual standing, Johnny Yungut had a large repertoire of Dreaming subjects, including a number of sites in his father's country around Kiwirrkurra: to the west, the sandhill site of Ngalpurrunya and the Pulyulnga soakage waters just out of Kiwirrkurra; Tjuntulpul rockhole and Tilunga rockhole and rocky outcrop just east of Kiwirrkurra; to the south, the rockhole and soakage site of Ngaminya; and, to the north, the claypan and soakage water of Tjutalpi.

His work also depicted Tjangimanta, a soakage water site set in amid stony hills and rocks; Ngalurrilyingya, north of Walawala in the Pollock Hills; and Wirrulnga rockholes east of Kiwirrkurra.

He also painted the Watanuma (Flying Ant) Dreaming for a claypan site to the northwest of Kintore.

He produced classical Pintupi grids of circles and connecting lines, dotted with infinite care.

Since 1999, his style loosened considerably due to failing eyesight, market pressures or reasons of his own, but he was one of the last few who continued to paint the classical designs and dotted infilling which has characterised the Pintupi style from the beginning.

In 1999 Johnny contributed to the Kiwirrkura men’s painting as part of the Western Desert Dialysis Appeal.

Significantly, his works feature in collections such as the National Gallery of Victoria, the Griffith University Art Collection and the Aboriginal Art Museum in the Netherlands.

His new style found rapid acceptance in the marketplace and in 2003 he had his first solo exhibition at William Mora Galleries in Melbourne, with a follow up solo in Sydney in 2004 at Utopia Arts.

He would not have another solo show until 2013 when the Papunya Tula Company put on a show in their Alice Springs outlet and his final solo, to cap a 30+ year career was held posthumously in 2017 at the ReDot Fine Art Gallery in Singapore.

He was a gentle, unassuming man with a calm inner strength, who was devoted to his wife, Walangkura.

His second 'mother' lived at Yuendumu and he had connections with Balgo where he lived for a time prior to the establishment of Kiwirrkurra in the mid-1980s.

Several of his relatives including Donkeyman Lee were among the leading group of painters at Warlayirti Artists in Balgo but Johnny chose to live mostly at Kintore with Walangkura's extended family.

Johhny Passed away in Alice Springs in February 2016.

Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists – Vivien Johnson (2008) Revised/Updated in 2017 by ReDot Fine Art Gallery