A Superb Old New Guinea Carved Pig by Mutuaga Milne Bay Province Papua New Guinea 19th Century

A Finely Carved Figure of a Pig by the Massim Master Carver Mutuaga, (1860–1920) Dagodagoisu Village, Sua Area, Milne Bay Province, New Guinea

In a field where virtually all of the many thousands of carvers remain unidentified, Mutuaga stands alone as a master carver whose work has been celebrated, collected and is also the subject of much scholarly research and publication.

Born around 1860, Mutuaga lived and worked in Dagodagoisu village in the Milne Bay province of Papua New Guinea. He died in the early 1920s. We know a great deal about him, in part because he was befriended by Charles Abel of the London Missionary Society. This friendship began in the 1890s.

Although Mutuaga did not adopt Christianity, Abel became his patron and promoted his carvings among European missionaries, traders, and visitors in the area. Abel provided an outlet for Mutuaga’s carvings beyond the traditional exchange practices of his community. Commodores and even two of Papua’s first governors acquired Mutuaga’s sculptures.

Many of these works later found their way into galleries and museums across the world, even into the collections of artists such as Jacob Epstein.

We are also fortunate in the extensive research and writings of the art historian the late Dr. Harry Beran who has studied Mutuaga at length. Beran identified Mutuaga and his body of work through some hundred sculptures that had been languishing largely unrecognized in museum collections and were published in the book “MUTUAGA  A 19^th Century Master Carver “1996

Provence: The Todd Barlin Collection of New Guinea Oceanic Art

See my new EXHIBITIONS GALLERY  showing the Museums and Art Galleries Exhibitions that I provided artworks for over the past 40 years. There is the link to the article about my artworks published in the prestigious Louvre Magazine in 1996

I have artwork for Museums and art Galleries but also for collectors at every stage of their collecting. I want to encourage people to explore the fine art of New Guinea & West Papua and the Pacific Islands and to be able to see and touch the artworks in a relaxed and friendly manner in my Sydney Gallery. I would like to invite you to visit my gallery and see the artworks in person and also look at my website www.oceanicartsaustralia.com where there are many Galleries & Sub Galleries to explore.

My Gallery of nearly 40 years is the last physical gallery in Sydney that specializes in New Guinea and Oceanic Art.  Sydney is very close to New Guinea & the Pacific Islands where all of these amazing artworks came from, Australia’s closest neighbors.

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