Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Eric Kjellgren

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Russell T. Clement Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information - School Library Journal

Following a three-year renovation, New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art recently unveiled its new permanent galleries for Oceanic art. This magnificent collection of 2600 works is now one of the world's most comprehensive, with holdings including an Asmat sculpture, a shield from the Solomon Islands, and textiles from Sumatra. Coinciding with the gallery openings, this catalog reproduces nearly 200 objects from the collection (71 in b&w, 232 in color). Editor Kjellgren (Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands), the museum's curator for Oceanic art, describes the featured artworks in considerable detail, with sensitivity to their cultural and ritual uses. Long sections cover the art and artifacts of the Pacific's five main cultural regions-Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the islands of Southeast Asia-and a glossary of terms specific to Oceanic cultures completes the text. An important publication on par with Adrienne L. Kaeppler, Christian Kaufmann, and Douglas Newton's encyclopedic Oceanic Art(1997); highly recommended for world art, anthropology, and museum collections.