Nawakadj Nganjmirra was an elder of the Kunwinjku people, whose traditional land is in the Kakadu and other Arnhem Land areas of northern Australia. When he was about 20 years old he went to Goulburn Island, where he married his promised wife, Mary Lilinjdji. They lived on Croker Island, but Nganjmirra killed a man in a family payback and spent a year in prison. He painted for a while in Adelaide then returned to Darwin, later becoming a freshwater crocodile hunter. During this time he recorded stories at Oenpelli with Peter Carroll.
His paintings on bark and paper have been exhibited around the world, and are held in major collections in Australia and internationally. He was considered a major art figure, and was one of the last rock painters in Arnhem Land. He spent some time working in a museum in Kobe, Japan, and also visited Mexico. An exhibition at the Burrindja Gallery in 2001 included paintings by four generations of his family, from traditional works by Nganjmirra in the early 1940s through to the present day works of his great-grandchildren Eva and Lawrence.
