BY PETER KRANZ

MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES around the world have massive collections of art works and traditional items from PNG - many plundered during nineteenth century colonial expeditions.

French and German museums have collections of many thousands of items, as does the British Museum. The Oceanic Ethnography collection in London used to be housed at the Museum of Mankind off Piccadilly, which I often visited on my way to and from university.

It has now closed but the collection is housed in the British Museum. Worth a look if you are visiting the UK.

I would suggest a more fitting place for such collections is the PNG National Museum at Waigani, but sadly it is run-down and underfunded.

Perhaps an aid project could be established to rejuvenate this important institution, or better still amalgamate it with the UPNG New Guinea Collection, the NBC sound and film archives, the remains of the Lae Archives and an other collections that are presently moldering away to create a really world-class national institution.

Until that time, at least collections like this one from Senta Taft-Henry will be properly looked after in appropriate conditions. I report on an item in the NSW Newcastle Herald, an excellent local newspaper.

NEWCASTLE UNI RECEIVES GENEROUS TRIBAL ART GIFT FROM SENTA TAFT-HENDRY

Now 83, the tribal art collector is embarking on another phase in her fascinating life and Newcastle is set to benefit. Taft-Hendry is donating 200 pieces of her large collection to establish a tribal art gallery at the University of Newcastle.

The gallery, stocked mainly from her collection in Sydney, will be the first of its kind in Newcastle and is scheduled to open on March 7.

Taft-Hendry said she had been drawn to the art and spirit life of tribal people since she was a child.

"I can't explain what it was," Taft-Hendry said. "I have had a very vivid imagination since I was a child. I had dreams of elephants, animals.

"I had a spiritual affinity with tribal art because with tribal art, I understood people's culture."

It was during a visit to Africa in the 1950s that her instincts started to make sense.

"I saw beautiful works of art in Africa and I thought: This is my life."

Since 1959, Taft-Hendry has operated Galleries Primitif in Jersey Road, Paddington.

The gallery has been stocked with works from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific and it will be some of these that will make their way to the new gallery at the university.

Some of her favourite pieces that will be housed in Newcastle are initiation and other sorts of masks, cooking pots, drums, shields and artefacts associated with "bride price", the PNG practice of exchanging valuable goods for women and marriage.

By the way, my dear wife and I never did manage to get our Simbu bilas from PNG. The problem wasn't with customs or quarantine, but the family. They loaned the bilas to a friend for a wedding, who had loaned it to someone else, and so it seems to have disappeared. Well at least I'm sure it's being put to good use.