Research Catalog

Title

Hunting the collectors : Pacific collections in Australian museums, art galleries and archives / edited by Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi.

Publication

Newcastle : Cambridge Scholars, 2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Cochrane, Susan.
• Quanchi, Max
• Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies. Conference (1st : 2006 : Brisbane, Qld.)

Description

xxvi, 414 p. : ill., maps; 22 cm.

Summary

This book 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.

Series Statement

Pacific focus series ; 2

Uniform Title

Pacific focus series ; 2.

Subject

• Ethnological museums and collections > Australia > Congresses
• Material culture > Conservation and restoration > Pacific Area > Congresses
• Material culture > History > Australia > 19th century > Congresses
• Material culture > History > Australia > 20th century > Congresses
• Sammlung
• Ethnologie
• Museum
• Australien
• Ozeanien

Note

• Papers originally presented at the inaugural conference of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies (AAAPS) held at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane in Jan. 2006.
• Errata slip inserted.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• Hunting the collectors / Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi -- The Royal Geographic Society expedition to the Western Province of British New Guinea in the 1880's / Jude Philp -- The perils of ethnographic provenance; the documentation of the Johnson Fiji collection in the South Australian Museum / Rod Ewins -- In 'the land the rare bird of paradis'; Three collectors in southern New Guinea 1875-1887 / Susan Davies -- Career moves; German speakers in the ethnographic field / Regina Ganter -- Thomas Farrell; Trading in New Ireland / Vicki Barnecutt -- Missionary positions; George Brown's bodies / Prue Ahrens -- A collector of images; the Pacific archive of photographer Thomas McMahon / Max Quanchi -- Edgar Waite's northwest Pacific expedition of 1918; the hidden collections / Barry Craig -- A Rara avis; the collecting of FE Williams, the government anthropologist of Papua and the Official Papuan Collection / Sylvia Schaffarczyk --
• (Works of) paradise and yet; Stanley Gordon Moriarty, Tony Tuckson and the collection of Oceanic Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales / Natalie Wilson -- Mr Pretty's Predicament : Ethnic art field collectors in Melanesia for the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board, 1968-1973 / Susan Cochrane -- Max Ernst; artist and collector / Christine Dixon -- Recollections of a Massim art collector / Harry Beran -- Who is collecting Pacific Island archives in Australia now? / Ewan Maidment -- The Pacific collections of the National Library of Australia; a reflection of national awareness and perception of the Pacific region / Susan Woodburn -- The Banaba-Ocean Island chronicles; private collections, indigenous record keeping, fact and fiction / Ken Sigrah and Stacey King -- Pacific collections in the National Museum of Australia / David Kaus -- Pacific focus; Bringing knowledge about photographic collections in Australia to Pacific communities / Tatiana Antsoupova and Ewan Maidment.

ISBN

• 9781847180841 (hbk.)
• 1847180841 (hbk.)

OCLC

• 77013169
• SCSB-10050829

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library