Overview

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.This volume is a very important one for anyone studying the art and material culture of the Pacific. It focuses on collections now in Australia. Even those well versed in museum collections from the Pacific will learn about many important but little-known collectors as well as better-known figures like the anthropologists F. E. Williams and Thomas Farrell, the husband of Queen Emma. This will be a treat for students and specialist alike.—Professor Robert L. Welsch, University of Dartmouth

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9781847180841

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Reviews

The books contributes greatly to the scholarship on collecting ... Many of the essays show evidence of thorough archival research. We read fascinating historical anecdotes, especially from Melanesia; the many black and white photos enhance the volume and often illustrate poignantly the colonial character of these collections ... Scholars of the Pacific interested in objects will undoubtedly read the book with interest. -Eric Kline Silverman, Wheelock College, Boston, USA in Pacific Affairs: Volume 82, No. 1, Spring 2009 A valuable addition to published material on collections in Australians institutions. -Geoffrey Gray, The Journal of Pacific History

""The books contributes greatly to the scholarship on collecting . . . Many of the essays show evidence of thorough archival research. We read fascinating historical anecdotes, especially from Melanesia; the many black and white photos enhance the volume and often illustrate poignantly the colonial character of these collections . . . Scholars of the Pacific interested in objects will undoubtedly read the book with interest.""—Eric Kline Silverman, Wheelock College, Boston, USA in Pacific Affairs: Volume 82, No. 1, Spring 2009""A valuable addition to published material on collections in Australians institutions.""—Geoffrey Gray, The Journal of Pacific History

Author Information

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 teaches Pacific History at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

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