Promoting the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art.
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 Review by Jim Elmslie The strength of this book is in its excellent images, many previously unpublished.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 high quality from a range of photographers: besides the author himself this book features images by Hughes Dubois; Kevin Conru; Michael Hamson; Richard Aldridge; Chris […]
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 it, Jean-Philippe Beaulieu presents a catalogue raisonné of all the known New Ireland Uli ancestor statues, extant and lost – 231 examples in all; most of them lavishly illustrated. […]
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, and connections to produce a richly illustrated book on the body adornments of the ‘South Seas’. Through it he shares his journey of collecting in […]
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. This is one of those rare publications and it is likely to be the sole reference for these cultural objects for some time to come. […]
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 the Adult Education Centre at Balgo (Wirrimanu), a remote Aboriginal community on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert at its intersection with the Kimberley […]
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 Rathmell-Stiels Published just weeks after the comic book superhero, The Phantom, celebrated his 85th birthday, this new book will appeal to everyone interested in a unique […]
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, London Reviewed by Margaret Cassidy Australian born Alice Procter grew up in Hong Kong and London and completed her university studies at the University College […]
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 with the exhibition Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations in the University of Sydney’s new Chau Chak Wing Museum that opened in November 2020. It […]
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 and 1990s is full of characters, myths and legends. For art lovers living in the coastal cities of Australia or around the world, great indigenous […]
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.
