"In The Carver and the Artist Damian Skinner charts the growth and development of the new forms of Maori art that emerged from the rapid urbanisation of Maori in the mid-twentieth century. He tells the story of the customary culture championed by Apirana Ngata at the Rotorua School of Maori Arts and Crafts, and how artists like Arnold Wilson, Para Matchitt and Selwyn Muru, encouraged by Gordon Tovey and the Education Department, reacted against this and constructed a Maori art that engaged with the modern world in which they lived. There was a rich trafficking between tradition and modernism - two seemingly incompatible but not always opposing positions that were the source of a great upswelling of creativity." "Illustrated with over 100 colour photographs of works that are not widely known, The Carver and the Artist demonstrates the dynamic way in which Maori art negotiated modernity in the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.