82 FIG. 1 (left): The artist Komanlowane sitting on the wall of a village. Unspecified location, Malakula Island, Vanuatu. 1972–1973. Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board, Canberra (presently held by the South Australian Museum). Photo: J.-M. Charpentier. FIG. 2 (right): The artist Kavinempur with a batru grade figure, Menmenboas village, Malakula Island, Vanuatu. 1972. Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board, Canberra (presently held by the South Australian Museum). Photo: J.-M. Charpentier. THE VANUATU FIELD COLLECTION AT THE N.G.A. The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) holds several relatively unsung but nonetheless excellent subcollections of Melanesian art of depth and quality. The majority of the NGA’s holdings from Vanuatu have their origins in a little-known part of the institution’s collection history: the Ethnic Art Field Collecting Program. A substantial selection of these field-collected works is presently being showcased in the exhibition Kastom: Art of Vanuatu. During the late 1960s the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board (CAAB),1 which was responsible for building the future National Gallery’s art collection, shifted its attention toward the establishment of a meaningful representation of arts from the Pacific re- By Crispin Howarth gion, particularly from Melanesia. The board was conscious that this area of the arts had long been underappreciated by Australian galleries compared to overseas institutions during the twentieth century. Graeme Pretty (curator of anthropology at the South Australian Museum) was recruited to act as the board’s ethnic art consultant and in this role Pretty made recommendations that a system of specially selected field collectors should be commissioned to acquire traditional arts in Melanesian countries. For Papua New Guinea several field collectors were active over the course of this project. However, in Vanuatu a single field-collecting project was undertaken between 1972 and 1973. This proved to be the ART on view
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