Noah’s Art – Floating art galleries of Indonesia
by Jeffrey Mellefont, Honorary Research Associate, Australian National Maritime Museum The subject of my recent lecture to Oceanic Art Society (OAS) in March – the artistry that can be found …
OAS Journal | Online
Hongi Hika: The Legacy Continues
Modern research continues to reveal secrets long held in uncatalogued documents and artefacts in rich archives. The centrepiece of this edition is the story of current research to identify which …
Three busts and a cape – the adventurous life of Hongi Hika
Story by Brent Kerehona | Image Caption: Bust of Hongi Hika, possibly self-portrait, carved 1814 in Parramatta, NSW Australia. Brighton Hove Museum, United Kingdom, photo © Brent Kerehona. Ki te …
Easter Island at the NGA
Story By Crispin Howarth | Photo Caption: Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Moai Kavakava, 18th-mid 19th century. Wood, bone, obsidian. Private Australian collection. There is perhaps nowhere in the world as isolated …
Warren Campbell of Bubble Artefacts
Interview by Jim Elmsie | Photo Caption: Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Moai Kavakava, 18th-mid 19th century. Wood, bone, obsidian. Private Australian collection. Jim Elmsie: Warren Campbell, can you explain what Bubble Art …
War Art & Ritual Shields from the Pacific
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 …
Leonard French – An Australian Artist Inspired by Melanesia
Story by Reg MacDonald | Photo Caption: The late Leonard French in his home cum studio, a 19th century mill at Heathcote, Central Victoria. In the shadow box above his …
Mathias Kauage, PNG Artist
Image: Mathias Kauage at Ray Hughes Gallery February 1999. Image by Ben Rushton. Mathias Kauage O.B.E. was Papua New Guinea’s best known and most highly awarded artist of the contemporary …
Another Successful Tribal Art Fair Sydney
by Bill Rathmell The Tribal Art Fair Sydney, held by the Oceanic Art Society at the National Art School on 17 August, may not be described as the only one …
Notes on Dumont d’Urville
One of the early French navigators whose collection will be viewed in La Rochelle on the OAS Pre-2020 Parcours Tour of South West France. By Pierre Laffont Dumont d’Urville survived three circumnavigations …
OAS tour of South West France Galleries
Pre-2020 Parcours des Mondes If enough members are interested in viewing the Oceanic Art collections from early French navigators and collectors, the Oceanic Art Society, under the direction of Pierre Laffont, …
An Awan for SAM
by Jim Elmslie Caption: The Awan with Sophie Parker, of ArtLab, Adelaide, South Australia. Image credit: Alice Beale. This large body-mask, called a tumbuan in tok-pisin, comes from the Iatmul people of the …
Poka Francis – Mountain Carver from PNG
Image: Centre: Poka Francis in Koranigle, 2017. Photo courtesy Helen Dennett. Left: Arbelo ensnared by python c2002. Right: Soldier c2002. Poka Francis lives in the village of Koranigle, in Simbu Province, …
Curiosity Remains a Driving Force
Image: Mathias Kauage ‘Independence Celebration 1999’, Andrew Baker Collection. Image by Mick Richards. The desire to know – curiosity – has long been a motivating force in human endeavour. In …
The Story Keeps Unfolding
With so much information available in the modern digital age it sometimes feels that we know, collectively, almost everything. In this edition Professor Ian McNiven shows us that this is …
Australian Museum’s Cultural Collections Centre Opens in Western Sydney
By Bill Rathmell, OAS President Half-a-dozen members of the Oceanic Art Society were present on 30th July at the opening of the “Cultural Collections Centre”- the new storage for the …
Beyond bridge and barrier: Torres Strait and curious artefact distributions between Queensland and New Guinea
By Professor Ian J. McNiven, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Melbourne During the nineteenth century Europeans became increasingly aware of …
Wylda Bayrón at Le Musée de la Castre, Cannes
by Chris Boylan Dominating the hill overlooking Cannes city and the Mediterranean is the ancient medieval castle and tower, now the ethnological museum, of Cannes, Le Musée de la Castre. The …
Massim Canoes – drawings of the unique outrigger canoes from the Solomon Seas
Tasman Light Gallery, National Maritime Museum, Sydney – 1 August to 29 September 2019 The Massim culture of Papua New Guinea is home to a unique collection of colourful outrigger …
Sepik Ramu Art
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 …
Times Are A Changing
In this issue of the of the OAS Journal we are fortunate to have Dr Maia Nuku, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, chart the evolution of …
Pacific Arts Association International Symposium, March 24 – 28, Brisbane
By Pierre Laffont The XIII Pacific Art Association (“PAA”) international Symposium took place over four days on 24-28 March in Brisbane. It was organised by the Queensland Museum in partnership …
Bridge and barrier: Torres Strait and curious artefact distributions between Queensland and New Guinea
In this talk, Ian McNiven will outline what he calls the “Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere” as a framework to help shed light on why some ethnographic artefact types are …
Expanding the Visual Canon: Fifty years of Oceanic art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1969-2019)
By Maia Nuku The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of Oceanic art includes over two thousand works of art from the Pacific: ancestral treasures handed down across the generations that …