New Guinea Highlands 85 used in dances and initiation ceremonies and for war paint. Vivid colors such as nambuchuwaka ensure beauty, good health, and strength. Moriarty spent more than a decade assembling this superb collection of highlands art, which at one stage numbered close to 2,500 works, all methodically documented. He was both pragmatically and aesthetically driven in his collecting, with the aim of displaying in his purposebuilt house-museum the vast array of art forms that he encountered in the highlands. From the most humble of domestic objects to the most spiritually significant ceremonial pieces, Moriarty aimed to represent every aspect of highlands culture in his collection. He opened his Sydney home and his collection to anthropologists, Pacific art enthusiasts, and museum curators, and through his friendship with the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ then deputy director, Tony Tuckson, he made his collection available for public display. This culminated in the groundbreaking exhibition Aboriginal and Melanesian Art, held at the AGNSW in 1973, the last time many of these works have been on public display. Between 1968 and 1978, the year of Moriarty’s death, the AGNSW received more than 540 works from the Moriarty Collection of highlands art through donation and purchase. His widow, Jean Moriarty, gifted a further thirty works to the AGNSW in 1979. It is through Stan Moriarty’s resolve to preserve the heritage of the highlands that we are now able to appreciate the art of one of the world’s most ancient cultures in this exhibition. Generous sponsorship provided by the Gordon Darling Foundation, as well as numerous private individuals, has enabled the AGNSW to undertake important conservation treatment for many of the works, which have remained in storage for the past three decades. The first exhibition in Australia to be entirely devoted to the art of the Papua New Guinea highlands, the works presented in Plumes and Pearlshells will form the basis of a new Pacific Art Wing, envisioned for the 2021 expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. NOTES 1. See Natalie Wilson. “Plumes and Pearlshells: The Shows of the New Guinea Highlands.” In Plumes and Pearlshells: Art of the New Guinea Highlands. Ed. Natalie Wilson. AGNSW, Sydney, 2014, pp. 11–18. 2. See Natalie Wilson. “Gaheisi (Ceremonial Dance Banner).” In Plumes and Pearlshells: Art of the New Guinea Highlands. Ed. Natalie Wilson. AGNSW, Sydney, 2014, pp. 35–37. 3. See Polly Wiessner and Akii Tumu. “Yupini (Fertility Figure).” In Plumes and Pearlshells: Art of the New Guinea Highlands. Ed. Natalie Wilson. AGNSW, Sydney, 2014, pp. 39–41. 4. See Chris Boylan. “Timbu Wara (Ritual Spirit Figure).” In Plumes and Pearlshells: Art of the New Guinea Highlands. Ed. Natalie Wilson. AGNSW, Sydney, 2014, pp. 51–53. 5. For an analysis of the history and symbolism of pearlshells across the highlands, see Jeffery Clark, “Pearlshell Symbolism in Highlands Papua New Guinea, With Particular Reference to the Wiru People of Southern Highlands Province.” In Oceania. 61:4, June 1991, pp. 309–339; and Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern. “Transformations of Monetary Symbols in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.” In L’Homme. No. 162, April– June 2002, pp. 137–156. 6. See Michael O’Hanlon. Reading the Skin: Adornment, Display and Society Among the Wahgi. Crawford House Press, Bathurst, 1989, pp. 106, 143. Plumes and Pearlshells: Art of the New Guinea Highlands Through 10 August 2014 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au Plumes and Pearlshells: Art of the New Guinea Highlands. Edited by Natalie Wilson. Published in English by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014. 172 pp., fully illustrated. ISBN: 9781741741056. Softcover: AUS $60.
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