This work comprises a major monument to Maori creativity and history, and will remain an invaluable reference on the subject for generations to come. --Book Jacket.

The British Museum holds the largest Maori collections outside New Zealand, including some items of major artistic and cultural significance. This important book will contain a substantial introduction including a history of the study of Maori material culture in Britain and New Zealand and a history of the British Museum collection and how it was acquired. This is followed by a detailed catalogue describing over 2,300 items - including woodcarvings, model canoes and paddles, domestic equipment, cloaks, baskets and bags, jewellery, musical instruments, ceremonial objects, fishing and hunting equipment, tools, weapons, and modern ceramics - an appendix listing collectors, donors and vendors, a glossary, and about 340 photographs illustrating approximately 500 objects. Written by specialists from both Britain and New Zealand, this book is the definitive publication on this remarkable collection.

A key publication on the British Museum's approach to the ethical issues surrounding the inclusion of human remains in museum collections and possible solutions to the dilemmas relating to their curation, storage, access management and display.

"Probing, jargon-free and written with the pace of a detective story... [Procter] dissects western museum culture with such forensic fury that it might be difficult for the reader ever to view those institutions in the same way again. " Financial Times 'A smart, accessible and brilliantly structured work that encourages readers to go beyond the grand architecture of cultural institutions and see the problematic colonial histories behind them.' - Sumaya Kassim Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall? How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today. The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.

Using extraordinary Indigenous Australian art and artifacts preserved in museums across Great Britain and Ireland, the authors present a global history that entwines ancestral pasts with epochs of empire and colony leading to the contemporary moment.

Documents Cook's voyages and reproduces around 500 original items collected by him and the international team of scientists and artists accompanying him.

The collections of The British Museum span all cultures and all ages, ranging from ancient Egyptian mummies to masterpieces of Greek and Roman art; from Celtic gold to Japanese paintings and traditional textiles from Africa. Today the Museum is bringing its collections up to date, and this highly illustrated book also features many recent acquisitions from all over the world. In his introduction the present Director, Robert Anderson, outlines the historical background to the Museum's recent redevelopment programme and offers an insight into the diverse range of activities engaged by this great storehouse of the world's culture. A final chapter outlines the work of conservation and scientific research.