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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 see some of them recovering. As well, the Oceanic and Aboriginal communities that are the custodians of the art and culture that we revere are […]
Navigating for a Place in the Museum: Stories of Encounter and Engagement between the Old and the New from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
A paper by Dr Michael Mel, Australian Museum. Reviewed by Bill Rathmell Dr Michael Mel. Image courtesy of the Australian Museum, Sydney. Michael Mel, the Manager of Pacific and International Collections at the Australian Museum in Sydney, is well known in Oceanic art circles. In an interview in the OAS Journal Vol 23 (2018, #2) […]
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Obituary – Barbara Perry
13 August 1938 – 10 November 2019. By Ron May Barbara Perry was a larger than life character, well known in Oceanic art circles in Sydney, and later in Brisbane. Barbara Perry (née Hockey) was born in Dubbo and grew up on her father’s sheep station, Courallie, before boarding at the Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney. Following her […]
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War Art & Ritual: Shields from the Pacific
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 Elmslie This lavish and beautifully produced book by Bill Evans is a rich resource for anyone with an interest in the shields of the Pacific […]
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San Francisco Art Fair 2020
By Krisztina Turza When I boarded the plane from Brisbane to San Francisco in February as a last minute decision, I could not have imagined that rather than the first, it could potentially be the last tribal art show of the year. To a first timer at the San Francisco Tribal & Textile Art Show […]
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