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Oceanic Art Society

Oceanic Art Society

Promoting the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art.

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OAC Journal Book Reviews

Masked Histories: Turtle Shell Masks and Torres Strait Islander People

11/03/2023 All Journal Articles, Book Reviews, Members Only, V28 Issue 1, Volume 28

2022, 215 pages, Leah Lui-Chivizhe, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing Review by Stan Florek I opened this book with great anticipation. My interest in Torres Strait Islander culture and …

Ma’ori

11/03/2023 All Journal Articles, Book Reviews, Members Only, V28 Issue 1, Volume 28

2023, 352 pages, Elise Patole-Edoumba & Helene Guiot, La Geste  www.gesteditions.com Review by Pierre Laffont Thanks to an alert on the Oceanic Art Society’s Facebook page, I participated in the …

Magic Masks and Figures from Oceania

26/11/2022 All Journal Articles, Book Reviews, Members Only, V27 Issue 4, Volume 27

Leif Birger Holmstedt, Torso Publishing, 2021, 158 pages. Review by Jim Elmslie The strength of this book is in its excellent images, many previously unpublished. The images are mostly of …

Uli: Powerful Ancestors from the Pacific

31/08/2022 Book Reviews, Members Only, V27 Issue 3

2021, 392 pages, Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, Primedia, Bornival, Belgium. Review by Noelle Rathmell-Stiels  This superb book has been six years in the making, but it is well worth the wait. In …

ADORNED by nature: Adornment, exchange & myth in the South Seas

06/06/2022 Book Reviews, Members Only, V27 Issue 2

Wolfgang Grulke, 2022, At One Communications, United Kingdom. Reviewed by Rebecca Conway, curator ethnography Macleay Collections, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney Wolfgang Grulke has applied his passion, collection, …

Tattooed History: The Story of Mokomokai

03/03/2022 Book Reviews, V27 Issue 1

2021, 180 pages, Robert K. Paterson, 5 continents www.fivecontinents.com Reviewed by Crispin Howarth Every once in a while, a publication comes along which deep dives into a specific Pacific subject. …

Balgo: The Creative Country

02/03/2022 Book Reviews, V27 Issue 1

2021, 396 pages, John Carty, UWA Publishing Crawley WA Review by Margaret Cassidy While in my final term break of my undergraduate degree in Art History in 1986 I visited …

Man Who Cannot Die – Phantom Shields of the New Guinea Highlands

29/08/2021 Book Reviews, V26 Issue 3

2021, 296 pages, Edited by Jonathan Fogel, with contributions from Chris Boylan, Bruce Cree, Hubert Langmann, Kevin Patrick, and Jessica Lindsey Phillips.  Sydney & Toronto: Boylan and Phillips. Reviewed by Noelle …

The Whole Picture

29/08/2021 Book Reviews, V26 Issue 3

Image: George Nuku, 2021, The red wall, lithographs of the Atlas du voyage de l’Astrolabe, reworked and polystyrene frame at Musée Hèbre Rochefort, France.  Photograph: Clémentine Débrosse. 2020, 304 pages, Alice Procter, Cassell Books, …

Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections

31/05/2021 Book Reviews, V26 Issue 2

2021, 320 pages, Edited by Rebecca J. Conway, Sydney University Press Reviewed by Lindy Allen and Louise Hamby Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections is an elegantly designed book produced to coincide …

Stranger-Artist

The Stranger Artist:

05/03/2021 Book Reviews, V26 Issue 1

Life at the edge of Kimberley painting  2020, 278 pages, Quentin Sprague, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne.  Reviewed by Margaret Cassidy The rise of the Aboriginal art industry in the 1980s …

The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist

10/09/2020 Book Reviews, V25 Issue 3

Margaret Cassidy reviews 'The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist' - Three Lives in an Age of Empire by Kate Fullagar, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

War Art & Ritual: Shields from the Pacific

06/06/2020 Book Reviews, V25 Issue 2

Edited by Bill Evans, Two Volumes, 518 pages, 140 Shields illustrated with additional images, eight essays and introduction. Published by William Nathaniel Evans, Woollahra, NSW, Australia, 2019. Reviewed by James …

War Art & Ritual Shields from the Pacific

08/03/2020 Book Reviews, V25 Issue 1

2019, 2 vols boxed, 484 pages, Bill Evans (ed), private press Bill Evans, Sydney, 750 copies. Reviewed by Crispin Howarth This is an ambitious work, signalling the culmination of a …

Sepik Ramu Art

03/09/2019 Book Reviews, V24 Issue 3, Volume 24

Edited by Kevin Conru. 296 pages illustrating 170 objects from three private collections. Photographs by Hughes Dubois. Edition limited to 500 copies, €295. Conru Editions, released in May 2019. Review …

Maori Children playing Knucklebones

Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand The Maori Portraits

09/05/2017 Book Reviews, V22 Issue 2

Edited by Ngahiraka Mason and Zara Stanhope. Auckland University Press in association with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, 20l6. Reviewed by Marina Garlick This splendid tome complements a fascinating …

Illustrated Catalogue of Ethnographical Specimens Photographic Reference

09/05/2017 Book Reviews, V22 Issue 2

By W. D. Webster. Review by Crispin Howarth William Downing Webster (1868 – 1913) began collecting and dealing in arms, armour and ethnographic material from the 1890s until his death. …

War trophies or curios?

01/11/2016 Book Reviews, V21 Issue 5

By Barry Craig, Ron Vanderwal and Christine Winter, Museum Victoria, Melbourne, 281 pp. Review by Peter McCabe “Me been talk with you now, now you give three good feller cheers …

La-Sisi – Malangan Canoe

01/09/2016 Book Reviews, V21 Issue 4, Volume 21

By Harold Gallasch and Neil McLeod. Melbourne Publishing Group, 2012. 60 pages with colour illustrations. Review by Jim Elmslie This lavishly illustrated book by OAS members, Harold Gallasch and Neil …

Myth & Magic: Art of the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea

01/11/2015 Book Reviews, V20 Issue 5

Myth & Magic: Art of the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea, by Crispin Howarth Reviewed by Peter McCabe The National Gallery of Australia published this book in association with its …

Bismarck Archipelago Art

01/02/2015 All Journal Articles, Book Reviews, V20 Issue 1, Volume 20

Kevin Conru (editor) with photography by Hughes Dubois. Published by 5 Continents, Milan, Italy, 2014. 327 pages. Reviewed by Jim Elmslie. This vast and gorgeous book is a work of …

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Latest Journal Stories

Transformation and Understanding

Tools of Intervention: Re-examining German and Papua New Guinean Art and Histories

The Evolution of the Contemporary Aboriginal Art Market

Ömie barkcloth Exhibition Opening Speech

Latest Journal Issues

V27 Issue 1

V27 Issue 2

V27 Issue 3

V27 Issue 4

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Wareemba NSW 
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