Hunting the Collectors: Pacific Collections in Australian Museums, Art Galleries and Archives
Full details for this title
| Interest Age |
All ages |
| Reading Age |
All ages |
| NBS Text |
Fine Arts / Art History |
| ONIX Text |
College/higher education;Professional and scholarly |
|
| Number of Pages |
440 |
| Dimensions |
Width: 148mm
Height: 210mm
Spine: 36mm |
| Weight |
717g |
|
| Dewey Code |
745.09182307494 |
| Catalogue Code |
Not specified |
Description of this Book
This volume investigates Pacific collections held in Australian museums, art galleries and archives, and the diverse group of 19th and 20th century collectors responsible for their acquisition. The nineteen essays reveal varied personal and institutional motivations that eventually led to the conservation, preservation and exhibition in Australia of a remarkable archive of Pacific Island material objects, art and crafts, photographs and documents. "Hunting the Collectors" benchmarks the importance of Pacific Collections in Australia and is a timely contribution to the worldwide renaissance of interest in Oceanic arts and cultures. The essays suggest that the custodial role is not fixed and immutable but fluctuates with the perceived importance of the collection, which in turn fluctuates with the level of national interest in the Pacific neighbourhood. This cyclical rise and fall of Australian interest in the Pacific Islands means many of the valuable early collections in state and later national repositories and institutions have been rarely exhibited or published. But, as the authors note, enthusiastic museum anthropologists, curators, collection managers and university-based scholars across Australia, and worldwide, have persisted with research on material collected in the Pacific.
^ top
Awards & Reviews
There are no reviews for this title.
^ top
Author's Bio
Susan Cochrane is a scholar and curator specialising in contemporary indigenous art. Her research interests since 1984 have been in the field of recent and contemporary Pacific art and art history and the past, present and future representation of indigenous Pacific cultures in museums. Max Quanchi is a Pacific Historian specialising on the history of colonial photography in the Pacific, and on the many historical connections between Australia and the Islands. He is Senior Lecturer in Pacific History at the University of the South Pacific.
^ top
