Eric Kjellgren

Eric Kjellgren is a leading scholar of the arts of Oceania. Formerly the curator of Oceanic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, director of the American Museum of Asmat Art (AMAA), and a member of the Art History faulty at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, he has worked extensively with contemporary First Nations Australian artists and conducted research in Vanuatu. Dr. Kjellgren has written more than 40 articles and 2 books on the arts of Oceania (How To Read Oceanic Art and Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in the Metropolitan Museum of Art); curated numerous exhibitions at the Metropolitan and the AMAA; and had curatorial responsibility for the 2007 redesign and reinstallation of the Metropolitan’s permanent galleries for Oceanic Art.

Dr. Kjellgren wrote chapters on the arts of Oceania from the earliest period to the present, including the section on Oceanic art in Chapter 7.