Michael Nelson Jagamara AM

Feb 17, 2026

Michael Nelson Jagamara AM, 1988 - Antonin Cermak

Michael Nelson Jagamara AM, 1988. Photo: Antonin Cermak

The Warlpiri painter whose work hangs in the Sydney Opera House, paves the Parliament House forecourt, and appears on the Australian five-dollar note

In 1983, a Warlpiri man living at Papunya walked into the Papunya Tula Artists studio and asked to join. He had been watching the older men paint for years, working in the government store, learning the rhythms of the movement before committing to it. Within a year he had won the inaugural National Aboriginal Art Award and been commissioned to design the forecourt mosaic for the new Parliament House in Canberra. His name was Michael Nelson Jagamara, born around 1946 at Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs), about 100 kilometres west of Yuendumu, at the intersection of several major Dreaming paths.

He had been taught sand painting, body painting, and shield painting by his grandfather Minjina Jakamarra. He remembered hiding in fear at his first sight of white men at Mt Doreen station. His parents later took him to the mission school at Yuendumu. He left at thirteen after his initiation into Warlpiri law, then worked droving cattle, buffalo shooting on the Alligator Rivers, and spent time in the army, before returning to settle at Papunya in 1976. He was a Warlpiri and Luritja speaker.

In 1984 he won the inaugural National Aboriginal Art Award (now the Telstra NATSIAA) with Three Ceremonies. That same year he painted Five Stories, which became one of the most widely published and exhibited works by any Indigenous Australian artist. It was among three works selected for the 1986 Biennale of Sydney, the first time Aboriginal artists were represented in the Biennale. Five Stories appeared on the cover of Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia at the Asia Society Galleries in New York in 1988, introducing a new international audience to Aboriginal art. Jagamara travelled to New York with Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri for the opening. It featured in Aratjara: Art of the First Australians, which opened in Cologne in 1993 and toured to Denmark and the Hayward Gallery in London. In 2000 it was shown at Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales during the Sydney Olympics. At Sotheby's London in September 2016, Five Stories sold for AUD$687,877, a record for a living Aboriginal artist at the time.

Five Stories, Michael Nelson Jagamara, 1984

In 1984, less than a year after he began painting for Papunya Tula Artists, Jagamara was commissioned to design the forecourt mosaic for the new Parliament House in Canberra. The work, Possum and Wallaby Dreaming, covers 196 square metres and comprises 90,000 hand-cut granite setts. It was unveiled at the 1988 opening ceremony, where Jagamara stood alongside Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Bob Hawke. The following morning, Ngunnawal activist Kevin Gilbert claimed the mosaic placed a curse on white Australia; Jagamara appeared on national television to say it "blesses all." In 1988 his 10-metre painting Possum Dreaming was installed in the Northern Foyer of the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. From September 2016, his Parliament House mosaic appeared on the Australian five-dollar note. In 1989 he painted a BMW M3 racing car as part of the BMW Art Car project, joining a series that included cars by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Metafisica Australe, 2017, Imants Tillers and Michael Nelson Jagamara

In 1985, Australian artist Imants Tillers incorporated elements of Five Stories into his own painting The Nine Shots, without Jagamara's permission, sparking a significant debate about cultural appropriation and the use of Aboriginal imagery by non-Indigenous artists. Jagamara was publicly angry: "One day he will be punished." The two artists first met in person in 1986 but it was not until 2001 that they struck up a friendship and began to collaborate, posting canvas boards between Papunya and Cooma in NSW where Tillers lives. They produced 24 collaborative paintings between 2001 and 2018, including Metafisica Australe (2017), acquired by QAGOMA, and The Call from Papunya (2018), acquired by the Tate Modern. Jagamara served multiple terms as president of the Papunya Community Council and in 2009 became founding chairman of Papunya Tjupi Arts, the art centre he helped establish for women and young people in the community. He received an Order of Australia Medal in 1993 and a Fellowship from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council in 1994.

Michael Nelson Jagamara died in November 2020. His funeral was held in Alice Springs on 14 March 2021, attended by hundreds including his longtime friend and biographer Vivien Johnson. A letter from Prime Minister Scott Morrison was read at the service.

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