George Ward Tjungurrayi was born around 1947 in the Western Desert near the remote West Australian community of Tjukurrla. His father had died when he was young, and it was not until his teenage years that George first met with white settlers. This meeting occurred when a welfare patrol encountered his family group which had camped by a desert waterhole.

George later travelled east to the government settlement at Papunya. There he worked as a fencer and a butcher in the community kitchen. He married Nangawarra, and moved to Warburton, then Docker River, Warakurna and finally to the newly established outstation at Kintore.

George Ward began painting in the early 1990s at Kintore. In 1998 with the passing of his brother Yala Yala Gibbs, a founding member of the Papunya Tula desert art movement , a degree of important cultural responsibility passed across to George. This became evident in the growing sophistication of his artistic output. He developed a distinctive painting style with dense parallel line structures marked out with shimmering rows of dotting. NGV curator Judith Ryan stated- "He hit on this sophisticated, geometric, filled-in style almost at once. I have the sense that he began to paint only when he was ready, in full command of both story and country - and he seems able to harness considerable power and visual energy almost every time he approaches a large canvas."

George Ward's large scale works depict the ancestral desert narratives relating to the country west of Kintore and the region around Lake MacDonald. Often the stories describe journeys taken by the Tingari ancestors as they moved through the landscape, transforming into the structures of the landscape.

George Ward Tjungurrayi is represented in most State and National Art Galleries and in major private collections, and was the winner of the 2004 Wynne Prize for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Reference: "Going to the source", The Australian, 20 April 2004, Nicolas Rothwell