Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, (circa 1920–2008) was an Pitjantjatjara artist from Central Australia who started painting on canvas when he was 85 years old.
[1][2] Whiskey was born in Pitjantjatjara country at Pirupa Akla, about 130 km south of Kata Tjuta to a family of traditional nomadic hunters and gatherers.
Whiskey did not encounter a white person until he was in his teenage years, and by then his father and many of his family had died and those remaining moved on to the Lutheran mission at Haasts Bluff.
[1] At Haasts Bluff Whiskey met and married Colleen Nampitjinpa, a Luritja woman (also a ngangkari), and they had 5 children together, following working for rations as a labourer at Areyonga, the family eventually settled in Mount Liebig in the 1980s.
[3] Whiskey's paintings subjects covered his early nomadic lifestyle and a mythic battle related to Cockatoo Dreaming (that had occurred at his birthplace) and show his deep traditional knowledge.