Nicholas Thomas

Nicholas Thomas first visited Polynesia in 1984 to undertake research in the Marquesas Islands. He has since travelled extensively in the Pacific, and written on Indigenous histories, empire and art; his books include Entangled Objects <i>(1991), Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire (2012), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize, Oceanic Art (2018), Gauguin and Polynesia (2024), and several collaborative books with artists including John Pule and Mark Adams.

Oceania, which Thomas co-curated with Peter Brunt for the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris in 2018–19, was acclaimed as a landmark exhibition. He has also written on contemporary art, museums, and heritage issues for the Financial Times, The Art Newspaper, Apollo, Artlink and Art Asia Pacific among other magazines and journals.

Since 2006, he has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.