Solomon Islands carved coconut used in the practice of teeth blackening
Clémentine Débrosse In 1568, Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira was the first European to visit the Archipelago now known as the Solomon Islands. At the time, Mendaña y Neira was …
Stories from all OAS Journal Volumes
Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections
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 …
Creatures: Ochred, Pokered, Carved & Twined
Main image caption: Yibiyung Roma Winar, Noongar Language, Mountain Devil, c.1998. Perth, Western Australia. Emu Egg, 9.5 x 15 x 8.5 cm. Berndt Museum of Anthropology Collection [1998/0058] Presented by the Berndt …
Harry Beran | Tributes received by the OAS
Main image caption: Dr Harry Beran interviews residents of Egum Islet in Milne Bay in October 2017. Photograph: Luke Wong, ABC. Reproduced with permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Scholar, author …
War Art and Ritual: Visit to Bill Evans’s Shield Collection
Reviewed by Bill Rathmell Whenever I go to an art gallery or museum show, I buy the catalogue (or I don’t) on the basis of the “wow” factor of the …
New places, new ways of engaging across cultures
The summer of 2020-2021 has seen the opening of some significant new or renovated/expanded museums from the east to the west coast in Australia. Those of us in Sydney have …
Ambassadors and embassies in the new Chau Chak Wing Museum
by Matt Poll Image: Djon Mundine OAM. The easiest way I could describe the Ambassadors exhibition is that I am using the protocols of an acknowledgement of country as a framework for …
An Important Addition to the Sculptures Known to be from the Kiwai area
by David Ferguson This article describes a remarkable and previously undocumented female ancestral sculpture carved in the round in a fully conceived naturalistic style (Fig.1) which appears most closely related …
Introducing CASOAR
by the Members of CASOAR In the Summer of 2017, a group of friends studying at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris who specialised in the Arts and Anthropology of …
Evarne Coote
by Eric Coote On 5 January 2021 we lost Evarne Coote, a long time friend of the OAS and the world of tribal art collectors. Evarne spent her life serving …
The Stranger Artist:
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 …
25 years of the OAS
Photo Caption: The 2012 OAS Forum at the SA Museum. Photo by Michelle Haywood. 2020 is a very significant milestone in the history of the Oceanic Art Society. As is outlined …
Creating change for a quarter of a century: The Oceanic Art Society
by Crispin Howarth The Australian-based international Oceanic Art Society (OAS) is celebrating its quarter of a century recognising and appreciating non-western arts of Australia and the Pacific. It began with …
Oh boy… 25 years already!
by Anthony Meyer I remember the inception of the Oceanic Art Society when Harry Beran first mentioned the idea in the early 1990s. We discussed it face to face during …
Comments on the Oceanic Art Society
by Michael Hamson I have been a part of the Oceanic Art Society for so long I cannot remember ever NOT being a member. In fact, I don’t even ever …
A Bird-Headed Kanak club in Norwich
by Carolina Gallarini While objects from Oceania can be viewed in several museums in the United Kingdom including the British Museum in London, the National Museums of Scotland or the …
Profile: Todd Barlin
by Margaret Cassidy Photo caption: Todd Barlin with his shields – Oceanic Arts Pacifica Casula Powerhouse, 2014. Down a quiet tree-lined street in inner-city Paddington sits the last remaining physical gallery in …
Jutta Malnic (1924 – 20 October 2020)
by Chris Boylan Photographer and author; above all, a person of great learning, wisdom and generosity. Jutta was educated in Switzerland where her father was the German Consul-General, but after his death …
Oceanic art market in the time of COVID
This edition of the Journal features Barry Craig’s account of the Pacific collection at the new Wantok Place Museum in North Adelaide as well as Jim Elmslie’s story behind the recent sales with remarkable provenance of works from the Hermannsburg school in Central Australia. We’ve introduced a new feature, the President’s Corner, where Bill Rathmell interviewed Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, following news reports of the deaccession of Pacific pieces from the collection.
A New Museum in Adelaide
Read Barry Craig’s account of the Pacific collection at the new Wantok Place Museum in North Adelaide.
Albert Namatjira, Rex Battarbee and the Birth of the Hermannsburg School
By Jim Elmslie | Water colour paintings of the Hermannsburg School are instantly recognizable by their subject matter, form and the delicate hues employed. These landscape paintings of the ranges of central Australia, many near the eponymous Hermannsburg Mission, are distinctively unique.
Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery of Australia
Bill Rathmell Interviews Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, following news reports of the deaccession of Pacific pieces from the collection.
The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist
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.
OAS responds with flexibility during COVID-19
The worldwide virus lockdown has hit all aspects of art and culture particularly hard. Cultural spaces and gatherings are often run on a low budget and it is hard to …