83 final yet most focused and successful in the shortlived Ethnic Art Field Collecting Program, amassing just over two hundred objects. Jean-Michel Charpentier, a French linguist with museum and anthropological training who had previously spent two years working closely with communities on Malakula Island, was contracted to spend twelve months on the project. Even before signing the official contract, Charpentier was motivated enough to travel to Ambrym Island in late October 1972 to see what might be available. Field collecting was seen as an appropriate action at this time for a number of reasons. Many objects in institutional collections (namely museums, since little was to be found in Australian art galleries at that time) had been acquired during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by natural history or anthropological expeditions to Melanesia. As such, collecting expeditions by museums to areas of Melanesia for anthropological purposes in the twentieth century were nothing new, although the aims of the Ethnic Art Program differed somewhat from the past in that it was considered particularly important to document FIG. 3 (left): Possibly the artist Kalitnasoa. Veneten or Yabkoetas village, Malakula Island, Vanuatu. 1972– 1973. Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board, Canberra (presently held by the South Australian Museum). Photo: J.-M. Charpentier. FIG. 4 (right): Grade figure, maghe nembul. Created by Chief Willy Taso, c. 1970. Fona village, Ambrym Island, Malampa Province, Vanuatu. Tree fern. H: 213 cm. Purchased by J.-M. Charpentier on behalf of the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board. National Gallery of Australia, 1971.207.49. Photo: National Gallery of Australia.
I-IVCoverE_CoverF Vuvi
To see the actual publication please follow the link above