Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art

Billy Stockman was an infant survivor of the 1928 Coniston Massacre. His mother and a brother were shot by Constable Murray's revenge party: 'All the people were running. I was a little one in a coolamon. My mother put me under a bush… They killed my mother.' (Vivien Johnson, 2008)

Billy Stockman was born at Ilpitirri near Mt Dennison, north-west of Yuendumu, the year before the Coniston Massacre savaged his family. He was rescued as an infant and raised by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's parents and grew up on Napperby Station, where as his name clearly states, he worked as a stockman. In about 1955 he moved to Haasts Bluff where he married a daughter of Uta Uta Tjangala's brother.

Like Kaapa Tjampitjinpa and Clifford Possum, Billy Stockman was a wood carver before he became a leading figure in the first few years of the painting movement. Together with Kaapa, Long Jack Phillipus and others, he participated in the painting of the Honey Ant Mural and he was one of the most enthusiastic artists in the Men's Painting Room. He painted Yam, Wallaby, Budgerigar, Spider, Rainbow and Water Dreamings and was one of the first to begin painting large-scale canvases.

Billy Stockman served as chairman of Papunya Tula Artists from 1976–1977 and as a member of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council from 1975–1979. He represented Papunya Tula Artists on several international cultural exchange projects and also travelled to New York in 1988 for the opening of Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia. He has now retired from painting and lives at Hetti Perkins Home for the Aged in Alice Springs.