Mungurrawuy Yunupingu

Mungurrawuy Yunupingu (c.1905–1979) was a prominent Aboriginal Australian artist and leader of the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people of northeastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia.

[7] Between 1959 and 1962, Yunupingu produced some of his largest and most significant works for the collector-donor Stuart Scougall, who along with the Art Gallery of New South Wales' assistant director, Tony Tuckson, commissioned a series of monumental bark paintings from the artists of Yirrkala to lay out the major ancestral narratives of the Yolngu clans.

[9] Aside from ancestral stories, he also produced several paintings depicting the interaction of Yolngu with the Makassan people, who were seafarers that seasonally visited the northern Arnhem Land coast to harvest trepang, or sea cucumbers.

[10] In the late 1960s, Yunupingu was commissioned to produce a series of painting on masonite board to commemorate events involving the ELDO tracking station at Gurlkurla by Geoff Woods, who was employed as the base manager at a nearby weapons research centre.

On 18 February 1963, the Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the opening of bauxite mines in the Arnhem Land reserve without consulting Yolngu leaders.

This was the first significant political claim to the land by Aboriginal Australians, accompanied by physical documentation in the form of the church panel paintings.

On 27 February 1998 they were unveiled by then prime minister John Howard, and were described by Yolŋu leaders as "Title Deeds which establish the legal tenure for each of our traditional clan estates".