San Francisco has a joyful splash of color waiting in Golden Gate Park. At the de Young Museum, six vibrant works by the Kauage family — Mathias Kauage, his wife Kunmanara Kauage, and his nephews Steven and Patrick Kauage — have joined the museum’s New Guinea collection, bringing bold, joyful contemporary painting from Papua New Guinea to the heart of the city.
Mathias Kauage (1944–2003) remains Papua New Guinea’s most famous contemporary artist. Self-taught, he developed a striking personal language to tell stories of everyday life in Port Moresby and the Chimbu Highlands — helicopters and airplanes, weddings, rugby matches, haircombing and celebration — rendered in brilliant, unmistakable color. His energy carried across the Pacific: he was the first Pacific artist-in-residence at Glasgow Print Studio in Scotland.
The new works form a true family portrait across generations. Alongside Mathias’s canvases — including an untitled 1997 acrylic, a 1982 Chimbu wedding scene, and the richly detailed Independence Celebration, Port Moresby — visitors will find Kunmanara Kauage’s lively The Bride Price Payment (2022), a nephew’s scene of warriors singing before battle, and another nephew’s painting of a woman being carried on a litter during a wedding, honoring a tradition reserved for respected women in Chimbu society.
These acquisitions, drawn from a collection of more than one thousand works formed by a former Peace Corps volunteer who lived in Papua New Guinea, deepen the de Young’s holdings in one of the most distinctive art traditions of the Pacific. Happy City News readers who love world cultures in a single afternoon will find the de Young’s Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas galleries glowing a little brighter.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
