Full Description
Galleries of Maoriland introduces us to the many ways in which Pakeha discovered, created, propagated and romanticised the Maori world at the turn of the century - in the paintings of Lindauer and Goldie, among artists, patrons, collectors and audiences; inside the Polynesian Society and the Dominion Museum; among stolen artefacts and fantastical accounts of the Maori past.
The culture of Maoriland was a Pakeha creation. But Galleries of Maoriland shows that Maori were not merely passive victims: they too had a stake in this process of romanticisation. What, this book asks, were some of the Maori purposes that were served by curio displays, portrait collections, and the wider ethnological culture? Why did the idealisation of an ancient Maori world, which obsessed ethnological inquirers and artists alike, appeal also to Maori? Who precisely were the Maori participants in this culture, and what were their motives?
Galleries of Maoriland looks at Maori prehistory in Pakeha art; the enthusiasm of Pakeha and Maori for portraiture and recreations of ancient life; the trade in Maori curios; and the international exhibition of this colonial culture. By illuminating New Zealand's artistic and ethnographic economy at the turn of the twentieth century, this book provides a new understanding of our art and our culture.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One - Curios and Exhibitions
Chapter Two - Maori Prehistory
Chapter Three - Portrait Galleries
Chapter Four - Performing the Ancient Past
Chapter Five - The Curio Economy
Chapter Six - Problems with Portraits
Chapter Seven - Pakeha Propaganda
Chapter Eight - Cosmopolitan Maoriland
Chapter Nine - Maoriland in Focus
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
