The New Zealand Maori in Colour

Te Ao Hou, December 1963, Page 51

The New Zealand Maori in Colour by K. & J. Bigwood and Harry Dansey A. H. & A. W. Reed, 25/- This is a big book of colour photographs of Maori life, past and present. The photographs are by K. and J. Bigwood, and the text is by Harry Dansey, the well-known Auckland journalist, of part-Maori descent, who has written extensively on Maori matters. The photographs appear to have been designed to some extent for the tourist market, but many of them are most attractive, and the book will certainly be popular. The best pictures are perhaps the most informal ones; the photographs which are posed are not always so successful. A number of the pictures consist of elaborately arranged ‘set pieces’: in one photograph for instance, we have two old carvings, two dried human heads, two muskets, a small sailing ship, a decaying log, and a quantity of ferns and other greenery, all brought together in what is described as being a ‘symbolic composition’. Opinions will differ as to the value of an approach of this kind. Harry Dansey's text is lucid, perceptive, comprehensive, and very readable indeed. —M.R.W.