Long Tom Tjapanangka was born around 1929 near Lake Macdonald on the Northern Territory–Western Australia border, close to his father’s Country of Lupul in the Frederick Range. As a child he walked with his family from Lupul east to Areyonga.

As a young man he worked as a stockman on cattle stations and as a police tracker, crossing much of the country that would later fill his paintings. He spent most of his life around Papunya and Haasts Bluff, and worked as a stockman on Haasts Bluff after it became a cattle station in 1954.

Long Tom began painting in the early 1990s at the newly opened Ikuntji Women’s Centre at Haasts Bluff, first with his wife Marlee Napurrula and later alongside his wife Mitjili Napurrula.

His paintings show the striking landscapes of his travels: tali (sandhills), puli (rocks and hills), ranges and places such as Uluru. Unusually for Western Desert painting, his style is figurative, and he laid on paint thickly and densely to give a palpable sense of Country. His work has been compared with that of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Rover Thomas. Long Tom said he painted for “everyone”, rather than to reveal sacred stories.