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Hunting the collectors

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Quanchi, Max and Cochrane, Susan (2008) Hunting the collectors. In: Cochrane,
Susan and Quanchi, Max, (eds.) Hunting the Collectors : Pacific Collections in Australian
Museums, Art Galleries and Archives. Pacific Focus Series . Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, pp. 2-14.

© Copyright 2007 Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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Hunting the collectors … pp2-14 Formatted: Justified

Cochrane and Quanchi, eds

Introduction

FEuropeans fascination with indigenous material culture and arts from the Pacific
Islands began with the earliest European voyages to the “South Sea” in the 16th Formatted: Superscript
century. The engagement on a ship’s deck, beach or hinterland between Europeans
and Pacific Islanders resulted in the acquisition of ‘curios’, whether as gifts, or
through barter, purchase or theft. 1 Sailors traded items from one island to the next
island, hoping to profit later from selling these treasures at their home European ports.
Naval oCaptains, officers and scientists appointed to voyages also built up collections
from personal interest, as part of their official duties, or for sale. Initially destined for
densely packed ‘curiosity cabinets’, most objects remained in private hands until the
establishmentgrowth of museums in Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand. T
drove the expansion of institutional growth of collections and ensured thea ad hoc and
then a commercialbusy trade in exotic weapons, decorations, utensils, art and natural
history specimens continued. With the development of new disciplines and
methodologies in ethnography and natural history in the eighteenth to nineteenth Formatted: Font color: Auto
centuries, collecting extended from casual and opportune shipside bartering in Formatted: Font color: Auto
‘curios’ to organised scientific expeditions; as well, museums made requests of
individuals visiting or resident in the Pacific to collect certain types of ethnographic
objects and natural history specimens on their behalf. This period also witnessed the
undertaking of massive expeditions that took several years to complete, such as the
US Ex-Ex or Wilkes expedition of 1838-42, the British Challenger expedition of Formatted: Font: Italic
1873-76 and the German Hamburg South Sea Expedition 1906-1910. In the late
nineteenth to early twentieth century, individual collectors collectionsitems began to Formatted: Font color: Auto
be purchased intact by institutions – museums, galleries and universities - and added Formatted: Font color: Auto
tobecame what were loosely catalogued as ‘Pacific’ collections. This period also Formatted: Font color: Auto
witnessed the undertaking of massive expeditions that took several years to complete,
such as the German Hamburg South Sea Expedition 1906-1910.

Pacific collections in Australia range from the official to the rarely seen private Formatted: Font color: Auto
collection; from large, systematic, catalogued series on defined themes, down to the
uncatalogued singular minutiae of early cross-cultural encounters. This volume of
essaysbook investigates some of the Pacific collections held in Australian museums,
art galleries and archives, and the diverse group of collectors responsible for their Formatted: Font color: Auto
acquisition. It reveals 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. Overall,
the essays suggest that in Australia 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 museums, like that of Thomas Farrell in the Australian Museum in
Sydney (see chapter 5) , the Charles Karius photograph collection in the National
Library in Sydney of Australia and the 5700 Pacific objects at the National Museum
of Australia (see Chapter 17), have not been exhibited or published, apart from one or
two items. The essays also demonstrate thatD despite little exposure and limited
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funding, many inspired and enthusiastic museum anthropologists, curators, collection

managers and university-based scholars across Australia, and worldwide, have
persisted with research on material collected in the Pacific.

The regional focus of the book

The regional focus of the book is on the southwest Pacific, sometimes referred to as
Melanesia, and in particular the former Australian tTerritories in eastern New
Guineay of Papua and New Guinea, known since independence in 1975 as Papua
New Guinea. Australia had a relatively short colonial experience in the southwest
Pacific region. In 1902, British New Guinea was transferred to Australia, when it
became known as Papua. Following Germany’s defeat in World War 1, Australia
gained the former colony of German New Guinea, which it governed first as a League
of Nations Mandated Territory and then as a United Nations Trust Territory. They
were jointly administered after 1947 as one entity, the Territory of Papua and New
Guinea (TPNG). The essays in this book highlightreflect the presence of Australian
colonial officials, missionaries and traders in eastern New Guinea TPNG and
consequently the high proportion of material from Papuan and New Guinean cultures
in Australian collections. . Formatted: Font color: Auto

Formatted: Font color: Auto

Australian museums, galleries and archives also acquired material for their Formatted: Font color: Auto
collections, whether art objects, artefacts, photographs andor documents, in other Formatted: Font color: Auto
countries of the southwest Pacific, particularly the islands under British colonial Formatted: Font color: Auto
control, such as the former New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), the Solomon Islands and Formatted: Font color: Auto
Fiji. Collections therefore tended to reflect only those islands that had, which had
Formatted: Font color: Auto
strong commercial or trade links to ports in eastern Australia, as well oras the
presence of missionaries and other residents with Australian connections.

Formatted: Font color: Auto

Collections in Australian archives, museums and galleries

The essays are presented in two sections; ‘Collectors’ is a roughly chronological

sequence beginning with Jude Philp’s account of the Royal Geographic Society’s
expeditions to British New Guinea in the 1880s, Rod Ewin’s examination of the
provenance of the Johnson collection from Fiji and Susan Davies account of how the
Macleay Museum acquired several its early collections from southern New Guinea.
Regina Ganter offers an argument for greater recognition for German collectors and
collections. Three essays focus on late nineteenth to early twentieth century collectors
in the Bismark Archipelago: Vicki Barnecutt examines the entrepreneur Thomas
Farrell, Barry Craig reveals the little known Waite expedition led by the Director of
the South Australian Museum in 1918. The multiple elements of the ‘Official Papuan
Collection’ (OPC), formed during Sir Hubert Murray’s long governorship of Papua
(1908-40), is described by David Kaus in the ‘Collections’ section, while Sylvia
Schaffarczyck’s concentrates on FE Williams, one of the collectors who contributed
to the OPC. Harry Beran, Stacey King and Ken Robeiea represent contemporary
collectors. With their contributions on the photography of the Rev. George Brown and
Thomas McMahon, Prue Ahrens and Max Quanchi bring photography into the scope
of the book, arguing that collectors of images should be part of the big picture.
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In the 1960s in Australia, interest in Melanesian and other Oceanic art rose to an
unprecedented peak. This was influenced by the high profile that ‘primitive’ art
achieved in prestigious museums in Europe and America2, as well as the attraction of
Australian artists and art lovers, who began to see aesthetic value in objects
previously devalued as ‘ethnographic’. The long-established Art Gallery of New
South Wales (AGNSW) and the nascent Australian National Gallery (ANG) both
declared Melanesian art a priority and started to collect in earnest. The
Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board played a seminal role and was responsible for
forming a collection for Australia’s new national gallery. Both the men leading the
foray into this new collecting territory were themselves practising artists; Tony
Tuckson, the Assistant Director of the AGNSW, and William Dargie, Chairman of the
Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board. The chapters by Natalie Wilson and Susan
Cochrane investigate this unfortunately short-lived passion of Australian art galleries
for Melanesian art. Christine Dixon’s contribution on the Surrealist artist Max Ernst’s
collection of Oceanic, African and native American objects, brings another
perspective to the recognition of the aesthetic wealth of Pacific cultures.

The five essays in the second section ‘Collections’, essays by Susan Woodburn,
David Kaus and Ewan Maidment argue the case for increasing curatorial interest in
the Pacific, the political utilisation of archives for nation-building and maintaining
cultural identity, and the contemporary fate of Pacific material in the National Library
of Australia and the National Museum of Australia. Tatania Antsoupova and Formatted: Font color: Auto
Maidment, Stacey King and Ken Robeiea consider the role of libraries and archives as
repositories and custodians of documentary material with a Pacific focus. We tend to
think of collecting and collections primarily in terms of objects, but the authors
remind us of the value of documents, art, music, film and photographs. Visual media,
especially photographic images, may be collectible their own right and possess
attributes of aesthetic quality and historical significance, but they also add value to
objects by providing contextual dimensions to their curatorial appreciation and
interpretation. Music recordings and films also capture the ephemeral element of
ceremony, which is the source of many of the objects collected from Pacific.

Collecting Formatted: Font: Bold

Formatted: Font: Bold
There is considerable scholarly literature on the two-dimensional nature of
collecting3, but the essays here focus mostly on the European,Australian and
American collectors within the Pacific region. Issues of indigenous agency, exchange,
justice, reciprocity and utilisation of goods acquired through trading or bartering are
alluded to but are not the central focus. The essays discuss instead the collector’s
motivation behind the collecting of items for display in Australian, and other,
museums and galleries, and secondly the fate of the objects when they entered
‘collections’.4 Several essays discuss the haphazard manner in which the idea of a
series or class created the notion of a collection.5 What happened in Australia to
substantial but often “poorly integrated or documented groups of items,”6 an
assemblage that was later labelled a ‘collection”.
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 4 Formatted: Right: 0.63 cm

Another theme running through several essays is a concern with metaphor and
metonymy in the selection process and the manner in which selection affects the
shape of a collection. Susan Pearce has noted “the selection process is the crucial act
of the collector, regardless of what intellectual, economic or idiosyncratic reasons he
may well have when he decides how his selection will work, what he will chose and
what he will reject”.7 The removal of items from the host culture means that objects
become, in a museum collection, a metaphor for the holistic culture from which they
came, but at the same time retain an “intrinsic, direct and organic relationship, that is
a metonymic relationship”8 with the ceremony, ritual, or living culture of which it was
once a part.
Formatted: Font color: Auto
Each act of collecting is an exchange through which we can view relationships
between Pacific Islanders and Europeans at a given moment of time, and the products
of collecting, whether in storage or on display, provide a fertile ground upon which
relationships can be revisited and revised. The Janus-headed nature of collections
means we need to look both ways - at Australia in the Pacific and the Pacific in
Australia. The motivations for establishing a collection, and initiating an exchange,
are discussed in the essays in this book; they range from the search for “desirable”
objects, following official orders, pursuing scientific enquiry, to curiosity, reciprocity
and commercial profiteering.. Formatted: Font color: Auto

Australian interest in the Pacific

The commercial and trade connections between Sydney and Hobart and the Pacific
Islands was so strong by the 1830s that historians argued that Australia had a “Pacific
Frontier” of greater importance than its expansion inland and around the coastal rim.9
Increasingly, the port cities of Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne and Brisbane, later
extended to a network of ports on the central and north Queensland coast, which
provided links for investors, intending settlers, shipping, banking, mining and
plantation interests. T that suited the expansion of European commerce, strategic
interest and missionary contactstrol and eventually led to Dutch, German, British and
French colonial rule over the islands of the sSouthwest Pacific.

As the Australian colonies developed and major cities took shape, a distinct, albeit
provincial cultural and intellectual community evolved, often in partnership with
scholars in Europe, and this created a high level of scientific and geographic interest
in the neighbouring Pacific Islands and their diverse cultures. For example, tThe
Queensland Museum collected artefacts donated by the officers and crew of Pacific
Island labour recruiting ships, or purchased them at various times during the labour
trade voyages to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Loyalty Islands and New Guinea. It
was a small but diverse sampling of tools, decorative crafts, weapons and carvings. It
was not a “collection” – a sequenced, single-flow of objects from a single source - but
it might be assembled at some future date by the Museum and put on display as a
“Labour Trade Collection”.10 The captain, crew or agents who gathered these items
during their visits to the western Pacific were not “collectors” in the sense of
operating solely for commercial profit by providing artefacts for the metropolitan
market, or being sent specifically by a museum or gallery to collect a defined range of
items.
Formatted: Justified, Line spacing:
single
Collecting
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There is considerable scholarly literature on the two-dimensional nature of Formatted: Justified

collecting.11 The essays here focus mostly on European, Australian and American
collectors within the Pacific region. Issues of indigenous agency, exchange, justice,
reciprocity and utilisation of goods acquired through trading or bartering are alluded
to but are not the central focus. The essays discuss instead the collector’s motivation
behind the collecting of objects for display in Australian, and for other museums and
galleries, and secondly the fate of the objects when they were catalogued in a
collections.12 Several essays discuss the haphazard manner in which the idea of a
series or class created the notion of a collection13 and why substantial collections were
left as “poorly integrated or documented groups of items”.14 A theme in the essays is
the idea of an assemblage that was later labelled a collection. Another theme running
through several essays is a concern with metaphor and metonymy in the selection
process and the manner in which selection affects the shape of a collection. Susan
Pearce has noted “the selection process is the crucial act of the collector, regardless of
what intellectual, economic or idiosyncratic reasons he may well have when he
decides how his selection will work, what he will chose and what he will reject”.15
The removal of items from the host culture means that objects become, in a museum
collection, a metaphor for the holistic culture from which they came, but at the same
time retain an “intrinsic, direct and organic relationship, that is a metonymic
relationship”16 with the ceremony, ritual, or living culture of which it was once a part.
Each act of collecting is an exchange through which we can view relationships
between Pacific Islanders and Europeans at a given moment of time, and the products
of collecting, whether in storage or on display, provide a fertile ground upon which
relationships can be revisited and revised. The Janus-headed nature of collections
means we need to look both ways - at Australia in the Pacific and the Pacific in
Australia. The motivations for establishing a collection, and initiating an exchange,
are discussed in the essays in this book; they range from the search for “desirable”
objects, following official orders, pursuing scientific enquiry, to curiosity, reciprocity
and commercial profiteering.

Weapons, utensils, decorative arts and canoes were the mainstay of early collections,
but the display of these items was haphazard. Both Barry Craig and Rod Ewins note
in their essays in this volumebook, that labelling of objects, the notes accompanying
acquisitions and the entries in journals now held in archives, are often unreliable and
very misleading. Elsewhere, Mariana Torgovnik has commented that the ethnographic
approach to museum displays at the turn of the twentieth century, “resembled
department stores during clearance sales: items were displayed en masse, in no special
order … primitive objects are displayed in a semblance of context, as functional
pieces”.17 She noted that, at the same time, academic interest “claimed to establish
new relations with the primitive and has indeed fostered new disciplines devoted to it
(ethnography and the study of African and Oceanic sculptures as art, for example)”. 18
Primitivism, Rasheed Araeen has argued, was a “function of colonial discourse and it
is therefore imperative that we try and look at the nature and complexity of that
discourse”.19 This discourseinterest, and public interest andeven fascination, with the
material culture, society and arts of the Pacific Islanders continued in the twentieth
century, when indigenous cultures in Oceania were allegedly endangered or liable to
suffer from a “fatal impact”.20 Rasheed Araeen described primitivism as a “function
of colonial discourse and it is therefore imperative that we try and look at the nature
and complexity of that discourse”.21
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In the post-World War II era, the growth of tourism with its demand for souvenirs or
‘tourist’ art’, as well as causing a price escalationng prices in the international market
for ‘primitive’ art, stimulated another surge of interest in collecting. As well, a new
wave of anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and geographers began to visit
‘discover’ the Pacific and follow more rigorous, intimate and sympathetic approaches
in their fieldwork and collecting activities. The post-war wave of collecting
acknowledged not only material cultures but also the artistic achievements of Oceanic
peoples. As Susan Hellier noted in a symposium on ‘primitivism’, “objects were
increasingly appreciated, collected, displayed and preserved. Today, the captured
beauty we now possess is both a legacy and a debt”.22

Collections Formatted: Font: Bold

Formatted: Font: Bold

Australia has three ‘official’ Pacific collections, that is, collections made under
government policy by officially appointed agents and purchased with government
funds. Despite this, there is no sense of a unitary, national collection; perhaps this is
not surprising, given that each colony prior to federation in 1901 had it own exclusive
history of links to the Pacific. The first major survey of Pacific collections in
Australian museums, in 1980, sponsored by UNESCO in 1980, revealed that many
objects were collected in an unsystematic manner and catalogued randomly.23 The
O‘official’ Papuan Ccollections (OPC) have a history of moving between institutions;
for several decades the OPC and other important collections were held at the Institute
of Anatomy in Canberra until they came under the custodianship of the National
Museum of Australia.
Formatted: Font color: Auto
The Macgregor Collection from New Guinea24 was the first ‘official’ collection. Sir
William Macgregor, the Governor of British New Guinea 1888-1904, intended the
collection to be sent south, but returned to the Papuan people when suitable premises
were eventually constructed in Port Moresby. The collection was then held in trust at
the Queensland Museum until a significant proportion was repatriated following the
independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975. The second official collection is linked
to the long career of Sir Hubert Murray as Australia’s Lieutenant Governor of the
Territory of Papua (1908-40). Murray followed his British predecessor, Macgregor, in
amassing an ‘Official Papuan Collection’ (OPC). Murray also declared that this OPC
would be held in trust for eventual return to the people of Papua, but that has not
transpired and it is now in the custody of the National Museum of Australia, as
described by David Kaus in this volume. The Murray collectionOPC is actually an
assembly of collections under one umbrella, each named after the individual
responsible for amassing one or more sets of objects, like that of FE Williams
described by Sylvia Schaffarczyk (Chapter 9). The third ‘official’ collection was
planned for the Australian National Gallery. It was assembled by Sir William Dargie,
Chairman of the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board, during his expeditions to New
Guinea in 1968-9 and by appointed field agents from 1970-73. Susan Cochrane
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(Chapter 11) describes below how this collection was caught up in the changing
political currents of the time; some items never left New Guinea, while the rest lie in
storage awaiting a future shift in interest and cultural engagement between Australia
and PNG.
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single
Collections in Australia in the 1960s, took on a new shape as interest in Melanesian
and other Oceanic art rose to an unprecedented peak. This was influenced by the high
profile that ‘primitive’ art achieved in prestigious museums in Europe and America25,
as well as the attraction of Australian artists and art lovers, who began to see aesthetic
value in objects previously devalued as ethnographic. The long-established Art
Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) and the nascent Australian National Gallery
(ANG) both declared Melanesian art a priority and started to collect in earnest. The
Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board (CAAB) played a seminal role and was
responsible for forming a collection for Australia’s new national gallery. Both the
men leading the foray into this new collecting territory were themselves practising
artists; Tony Tuckson, the Assistant Director of the AGNSW, and William Dargie,
Chairman of the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board. The chapters by Natalie
Wilson and Susan Cochrane investigate this unfortunately short-lived passion of
Australian art galleries for collecting Melanesian art. Christine Dixon’s contribution
on the Surrealist artist Max Ernst’s collection of Oceanic, African and native
American objects, brings another perspective to the recognition of the aesthetic wealth
of Pacific cultures.
Formatted: Justified
The role of Museums, galleries, libraries and archives changed as the twentieth
century drew to a close. As the founding Director of the new National Museum of
Australia noted in 2001, “Museums can no longer be seen as storehouses for objects
and as venues for passive exhibitions”.26 She added that museums around the world
were “rethinking their role and purpose in society”.27 They were no longer sites of
visitation for learning-by-looking, where the “national self was defined through the
encounter with the other, especially the non-European other”.28 What this will mean
for objects, art and archives collected from the Pacific over the last two hundred years
is uncertain. But as Graeme Davison noted in the 2001 debate on museums in
Australia, they will become entangled in what he called “vigorously contested sites of
national history”.29 Pacific objects, art and archives will not just remain in storerooms
and exhibition spaces but will become, in Anita Herle’s visionary projection,
entangled in cross cultural encounters and productive exchanges between museum
staff and source communities as they connect and develop multiple interpretive
exhibition frameworks and museum research projects.30

The
Collectors

Some individuals have dedicated years to the activity of collecting, then researching
and documenting their treasured acquisitions, both for the intellectual and aesthetic
pleasure they personally gained from it as well as for sharing the benefits of greater
knowledge and appreciation with others. The contribution of private collectors is
acknowledged by their high profile within collecting institutions – museums, art
galleries, libraries and archives – and is represented in this volume by Stacey King
and Raboiea Ken Sigrah and Harry Beran’s account of their own contemporary
collecting.
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There is a biographical element that binds collectors to their collection, not only by
naming it after them, but also through an association that continues even after the
collection is dispersed. For example, as Christine Dixon notes, the Max Ernst
Collection is as much about the Surrealist artist’s fascination with Oceanic and Native
American Indian art and the way the objects he collected or admired played on his
imagination, asthan it is about any of the singular objects in his collection. Each of the
collectors mentioned in this volume had a particular motivation and pursued their
interests or those of their sponsors, but for some labelled here as “collectors”, an
expedition was a solitary chance and due to their unfamiliarity with the Pacific and
their inability to communicate with indigenous communitiespeople, their collecting
activities were more-or-less ad hoc. Virtually all collectors relied on interpreters to
communicate their wishes to villagers, but when they found villages deserted their
consciences were not always reliable and they borrowed, requisitioned or stole what
they wanted. Collectors were also limited geographically by the shipping routes,
administration patrolling and M, Mission Stations, and often by the accident of
happening upon an ancient, traditional exchange path or trade route. The frequency of
previous cross-cultural contact, or alternatively being the first to make contact with an
indigenous group, also affected the nature of collecting and what was collected.
Collecting too near a port town, or a Mission, was also significant. For example, the
Rev. George Brown’s Wesleyan mission in New Britain was not too far distant from
the plantation and trading empire established by ‘Queen’ Emma Forsayth and her
partner, Thomas Farrell. Both were collectors, but their motivations for collecting
differed. ItAs several authors note, there seemed at times to be too many collectors
were descending on a particular community, especially once it had become famous
for art, ceremonies, rituals or a willingness to trade.

Robert Welsch notes that “no longer can we accept museum collections as evidence
of some traditional culture, but we must consider how and why collections were
assembled if we are to understand what they can say about the changing communities
from which they were collected”.31 After reviewing essays on the collectors Raymond
Firth (an anthropologist), Kenneth Thomas (a patrol officer) and Frank Burnett (a
traveller), and noting over the last twenty years the acceptance that “objects like
people have social lives”,32 Robert Welsch added there has been another “major shift
in how scholars now approach museum collections”.33 The essays in this volume
pursue these challenges in an Australian setting.

The essays Formatted: Justified, Line spacing:

single

The essays are presented in two sections; ‘Collectors’ is a roughly chronological

sequence beginning with Jude Philp’s account of the Royal Geographic Society’s
expedition to British New Guinea in the 1880s, Rod Ewin’s examination of the
provenance of the Johnson collection from Fiji and Susan Davies account of how the
Macleay Museum acquired several of its early collections from southern New Guinea.
Regina Ganter offers an argument for greater recognition for German collectors and
collections. Three essays focus on late nineteenth to early twentieth century collectors
in the Bismarck Archipelago: Vicki Barnecutt examines the entrepreneur Thomas
Farrell, Barry Craig the little known Waite expedition led by the Director of the South
Australian Museum in 1918, and Prue Ahrens the photography of the Rev George
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Cochrane and Quanchi SC draft 6/10/20098/21/2006

 9 Formatted: Right: 0.63 cm

Brown. Max Quanchi also extends the scope of the book, arguing that photographers
such as Thomas McMahon should be regarded as collectors. Sylvia Schaffarczyck
concentrates on FE Williams, one of the collectors who contributed to the OPC. Two
men who shaped the collecting of Oceanic art for the Art Gallery of New South
Wales, Tony Tuckson and Stanley Moriaty, are discussed by Natalie Wilson, while
Susan Cochrane looks at Graeme Pretty’s scheme for Commonwealth Arts Advisory
Board collectors in Papua New Guinea. The section on collectors closes with
Christine Dixon’s account of Max Earnst’s collecting and its influence on his art and
Harry Beran’s account of his own role as a collector in the Massim area of Papua New
Guinea.

In the section on collections, the essays by Susan Woodburn on the National Library
of Australia, David Kaus on the National Museum of Australia and Ewan Maidment
on the need for a national archives program, argue the case for increasing curatorial
interest in the Pacific. They stress the political utilisation of archives for nation-
building and maintaining cultural identity, and raise questions about the contemporary
and future fate of Pacific material now in Australian institutions and repositories. For
example, the OPC formed during Sir Hubert Murray’s long governorship of Papua
(1908-40), is discussed by David Kaus. Tatania Antsoupova and Ewan Maidment on
photographs, and then Stacey King and Ken Robeiea on personal collections (and
political campaigns), raise questions about the long-term fate of both private and
public collections. The tendency to think of collecting and collections primarily in
terms of objects is challenged in these essays as they discuss the value of documents,
art, music, film and photographs. Visual media, especially photographic images, may
be collectible their own right and possess attributes of aesthetic quality and historical
significance, but they also add value to objects by providing contextual dimensions to
their curatorial appreciation and interpretation. Music recordings and film, although
not covered in these essays, also capture the ephemeral element of ceremony, which is
the source of many of the objects collected from Pacific.
Formatted: Justified
In Western culture we tend to think of collecting and collections primarily in terms of
objects, but the authors below remind readers of the value of documents, art, music,
film and photographs. The essays by Ahrens, Quanchi and Antsoupova and Maidment
tackle aspects of photography, from the activities of the photographers – Thomas
McMahon and George Brown – through to use, collection and preservation. Visual
media forms a collection in its own right, but also gives added value to material
culture items and objects by providing contextual dimensions to their curatorial
appreciation and interpretation. The art, photographic image, song, field journal or
diary has its own aesthetic quality. Music and image, brought together in film, also
records the ephemeral element of ceremony, which is the source of many of the
objects collected from the Pacific.

Genesis of the project

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The essays were first presented as papers at the inaugural conference of the Australian Formatted: Font: Not Bold
Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies (AAAPS), which was held at the
Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane in January, 2006. A deliberately
chosen focus of the AAAPS conference, on Pacific collections in Australia, provided
an opportunity for Australian scholars, museum professionals and archivists to
generate more interest in the entwined history of Australia-Pacific relations. This
focus also allowed for a rare and overdue engagement between curators (and
collectors) based in or associated with museums and galleries, wandith scholars from
the Humanities and Social Sciences based in universities, who otherwise rarely share
the same conference program. In the current climate of institutional malaise in the
southwest Pacific region, characterised by several museums, for example, not having
basic telephone, fax or electronic communications, the conference also searched for
ways of link Australian repositories and scholars with their regional counterparts.

Ian Galloway notes in the Foreword, that this volume of essays by scholars and
museum professionals is also dedicated to a new initiative of the Australian branch of
the International Commission on Monuments (ICOM). Known as the Australia
Pacific Partners Program, this links a state-based Australian museum with a national,
counterpart institution in a Pacific Island nation. The Pacific Partners Pprogram, the
AAAPS conference and now this collection volume of essays, form a three-pronged
strategy of reappraising the past and start a new dialogue. By making the Pacific
collections in Australian repositories better known, further opportunities it is hoped
that further opportunities will arise for collaborative research and workshops, as well
as possibilities for repatriation, focused collecting activities and exhibitions. It may
stimulate opportunities for exchange and foster professional relationships between
museum professionals and archivists in both Australian institutions and their Pacific
counterparts.

We wish to thank the authors of the essays for their enthusiasm and patience. Susan
Cochrane’s participation in the project was assisted by the University of Queensland.
Max Quanchi thanks Queensland University of Technology for hosting the AAAPS
conference, and a Vanuatuhis pet stonefish for giving him the time for the editing
task!!!! Prue Ahrenss has made a valuable contribution as Picture Editor. Many
colleagues anonymously peer- reviewed essays and their suggestions and guidance
were invaluable in putting the collection together. MThe museums, art galleries and
archives made images from their respective collections available for reproduction at
the request of the authors and editors, and we are grateful for their co-operation.
Cambridge Scholars Press expressed interest in thetook on the book proposal and it is
one of the first volumes in their new Pacific Focus series.

Araeen, Rasheed. “From primitivism to ethnic arts”, in The myth of primitivism;

perspectives on art, edited by Susan Hellier, London: Routledge, 1991, 158-182.
Bolton, Lissant. Oceanic Cultural Property in Australia. Sydney: Australian National
Commission for UNESCO, 1980.
Casey, Dawn. “Foreword” in National museums; negotiating history; conference
proceedings, edited by Darryl McIntyre and Kirsten Wehner, Canberra: National
Museum of Australia, 2001,
Formatted: English (U.S.)

Cochrane and Quanchi SC draft 6/10/20098/21/2006

 11 Formatted: Right: 0.63 cm

Casey, Dawn. “The National Museum of Australia: exploring the past, illuminating
the present and imagining the future”, in National museums; negotiating history;
conference proceedings, edited by Darryl McIntyre and Kirsten Wehner,
Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2001,
Clifford, James. Routes; travel and translation in the late Twentieth century.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Davison, Graeme. “National museums in a global age; observations abroad and
reflections at home”, in National museums; negotiating history; conference
proceedings, edited by Darryl McIntyre and Kirsten Wehner, Canberra: National
Museum of Australia, 2001,
Hainsworth, DR. Builders and adventurers, Sydney: Cassell, 1968.
Hainsworth, DR. The Sydney traders. Sydney: Cassell, 1971.
Moorehead, Alan. The fatal impact, the invasion of the South Pacific 1767-1840,
London: Hamish Hamilton, 1966.
Newell, Jennifer. “Collecting from the collectors; Pacific Islanders and the spoils of
Europe” in Cook’s Pacific encounters; the Cook-Forster collection of the
Georg-August University of Göttingen, Canberra, National Museum of
Australia, 2006, 29-47.
O’Hanlon, Michael and Robert Welch. eds, Hunting the gatherers; Ethnographic
collectors, agents and agency in Melanesia 1870-1930s. New York, Berghahn,
Pearce, Susan . Museums, objects and collections; a cultural study. London: Leicester
University Press, 1992.
Quinnell, Michael. “Before it has become too late; The making and repatriation of Sir
William Macgregor’s Official Collection from British New Guinea”, in Hunting
the gatherers, edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Welch, 81-103
Stanley, Nick. “Can museums help sustain indigenous identity? – Reflections from
Melanesia”, Visual Anthropology, 17, 2004, 371.
Thomas, Nicholas. Entangled objects; exchange material culture and colonialism in
the Pacific, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Torgovnick, Mariana. Gone primitive; savage intellects, modern lives, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Welsch, Robert. “Introduction” in Pacific Art: persistence, change and meaning,
edited by Anita Herle, Nick Stanley, Karen Stevenson and Robert Welsch,
Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2002, 1-12.
Herle, Anita. “Objects, agency and museums; continuing dialogues between the
Torres Strait and Cambridge”, in Pacific Art: persistence, change and meaning,
edited by Anita Herle, Nick Stanley, Karen Stevenson and Robert Welsch,
Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2002, 231-49.
Young, John. .Australia’s Pacific Frontier, Sydney: Cassell, 1967.

Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi

Brisbane 2006
1
For the curiosity trade see; Nicholas Thomas, Entangled objects; exchange Formatted: Font: 12 pt
material culture and colonialism in the Pacific, Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
1991; Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Welch, eds, Hunting the gatherers; Formatted: Font: 12 pt, Not Italic
Ethnographic collectors, agents and agency in Melanesia 1870-1930s. New York, Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Berghahn; Jennifer Newell, “Collecting from the collectors; Pacific Islanders and the
Formatted: English (U.S.)

Cochrane and Quanchi SC draft 6/10/20098/21/2006

 12 Formatted: Right: 0.63 cm

spoils of Europe” in Cook’s Pacific encounters; the Cook-Forster collection of the

Georg-August University of Göttingen, Canberra, National Museum of Australia,
2006, 29-47.
2
Susan Hillier, ed, The myth of primitivism; Perspectives on art, London:
Routledge 1991.
3
Nicholas Thomas, Entangled objects; Exchange, material culture and
colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1991; James
Clifford, Routes; travel and translation in the late Twentieth century. Cambridge,
Harvard University Press, 1997; Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Welch, eds. Hunting
the gatherers; Ethnographic collectors, agents and agency in Melanesia 1870s-1930s.
New York: Berghahn 2000.
4
Susan Pearce, Museums, objects and collections; a cultural study. London:
Leicester University Press, 1992, 36.
5
Pearce, Museums, objects and collections, 48.
6
Nick Stanley, “Can museums help sustain indigenous identity? – Reflections
from Melanesia” Visual Anthropology, 17, 2004, 371.
7
Pearce, Museums, objects and collections, 38.
8
Pearce, Museums, objects and collections, 38.
9
John Young, Australia’s Pacific Frontier, Sydney: Cassell, 1967; DR
Hainsworth, Builders and adventurers, Sydney: Cassell, 1968: DR Hainsworth, The
Sydney traders. Sydney: Cassell, 1971.
10
For example, in June 2006, many Pacific Island artefacts were brought from
storage and a tour organised for participants in a one-day Australian South Sea
Islander and Museum workshop. The items were related in one way or another to the
“Labour Trade”.
11
Nicholas Thomas, Entangled objects; ; Exchange, material culture and Formatted: Font: 12 pt
colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1991 Michael
O’Hanlon and Robert Welch, eds. Hunting the gatherers; ; James Clifford, Routes;
travel and translation in the late Twentieth century. Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 1997.; Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Welch, eds. Hunting the gatherers;
Ethnographic collectors, agents and agency in Melanesia 1870s-1930s. New York:
Berghahn 2000.
12
Susan Pearce, Museums, objects and collections; a cultural study. London:
Leicester University Press, 1992, 36.
13
Pearce, Museums, objects and collections, 48.
14
Nick Stanley, “Can museums help sustain indigenous identity? – Reflections
from Melanesia” Visual Anthropology, 17, 2004, 371.
15
Pearce, Museums, objects and collections, 38.
16
Pearce, Museums, objects and collections, 38.
17
Mariana Torgovnick, Gone primitive; savage intellects, modern lives,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, 75.
18
Torgovnick, Gone primitive, 9.
19
Rasheed Araeen, “From primitivism to ethnic arts”, in Susan Hellier, The myth
of primitivism; perspectives on art, London: RoutledgeHellier, The myth of Formatted: Font: 12 pt
primitivism, 160.
20
The title of a famous book; Alan Moorehead, The fatal impact, the invasion of
the South Pacific 1767-1840, London: Hamish Hamilton 1966. It came out as a
paperback in 1968 and was reprinted six times. An illustrated edition was published in
1987.
Formatted: English (U.S.)

Cochrane and Quanchi SC draft 6/10/20098/21/2006

 13 Formatted: Right: 0.63 cm

21
Rasheed Araeen, “From primitivism to ethnic arts”, in Hellier, The myth of
primitivism, 160.
22
Susan Hellier, The myth of primitivism; perspectives on art, London:
Routledge 1991,, 1. Formatted: Font: 12 pt
23
Lissant Boulton, Oceanic Cultural Property in Australia. Sydney: Australian
National Commission for UNESCO, 1980 Formatted: Font: 12 pt, English (U.S.)
24
Michael Quinnell, “Before it has become too late; The making and repatriation Formatted: Font: 12 pt
of Sir William Macgregor’s Official Collection from British New Guinea”, in Michael
O’Hanlon and Robert Welch, eds, Hunting the gatherers 2000, 81-103. Formatted: Font: 12 pt
25
Susan Hillier, ed, The myth of primitivism, passim.m; Perspectives on art, Formatted: Font: 12 pt
London: Routledge 1991.
26
Dawn Casey, “Foreword” in Darryl McIntyre and Kirsten Wehner, eds,
National museums; negotiating history; conference proceedings, Canberra: National
Museum of Australia, 2001, iii.
27
Dawn Casey, “The National Museum of Australia: exploring the past,
illuminating the present and imagining the future”, Ibid., 3. Formatted: Font: 12 pt, Not Italic
28
Graeme Davison, “National museums in a global age; observations abroad and Formatted: Font: 12 pt
reflections at home”, Ibid.,12. Formatted: Font: 12 pt, Italic
29
Loc.cit. Formatted: Font: 12 pt
30
Robert Welsch, “Introduction” in Anita Herle, Nick Stanley, Karen Stevenson
and Robert Welsch, eds, Pacific Art: persistence, change and meaning, Honolulu,
University of Hawai’i Press, 2002, 10. See also, Anita Herle, “Objects, agency and
museums; continuing dialogues between the Torres Strait and Cambridge”, Ibid., 231- Formatted: Font: 12 pt, Italic
49. Formatted: Font: 12 pt
31
Robert Welsch, “Introduction”, 10
32
The 1999 Pacific Arts Association conference proceedings included six papers
which addressed the theme “Exploring museums, collectors and meanings”. Anita
Herle, Nick Stanley, Karen Stevenson and Robert Welsch, eds, Pacific Art, 165-249. Formatted: Font: 12 pt, Not Italic
33
Robert Welsch, “Introduction”, 10. Formatted: Font: 12 pt

Formatted: English (U.S.)

Cochrane and Quanchi SC draft 6/10/20098/21/2006

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