9 Apr 2009

Works by PNG artist Kauage goes on display in Britain

6:45 pm on 9 April 2009

Artworks by the Papua New Guinean Mathias Kauage are being put on public display for the first time at a new exhibition in England.

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge is showing a previously unexhibited group of early drawings and beaten copper panels by the artist.

The Museum describes Mr Kauage as a founding father of modern art in the Pacific.

Visitors to the exhibition can listen to a rare early recording of Mathias Kauage singing and playing traditional instruments including a bamboo flute.

Mathias Kauage who was from Chimbu province, was one of the most well-known Papua New Guinean artists.

He was honoured with the Order of the British Empire in 1997 and died in 2003.

It's thought Queen Elizabeth has his portrait of her, Misis Kwin, hung in a room inside Buckingham Palace.

The work depicts the monarch with a bone through her nose.