Book launch at Unity Books, Wellington

Last night saw the launch of 'Rauru: Tene Waitere, Maori Carving, Colonial History' from Otago University Press ($120, ISBN 9781877372612)

The author, Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Musuem of Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge University, spoke first then Peter Brunt, Senior Lecturer in Art History at Victoria Univeristy, and finally Mark Adams, one of NZs most distinguished photographers.

My spies tell me it was a warm, cosy, well-attended event and that the book is a very well-researched piece on the travels and contexts of the work of one of NZ's preeminent and greatly under-appreciated artists, the carver Tene Waitere.

Photo left shows Mark Adams, Nicholas Thomas and Peter Brunt.