Product Description

Night of the Tiki: The Art of Shag Schmaltz and Selected Primitive Oceanic Carvings represents a genuine highwater mark in the current Polynesian revival, bring in the best of present and past tiki Americana and art together with selected pieces of indigenous Oceania.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #459253 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 119 pages

About the Author
Douglas Nason is an anthropologist with a deep interest in art and culture. A peripatetic explorer with a penchant for two passions: the ultraprimitive and the ultracontemporary, Nason uses both writing and photography to explore and document the ancient and modern worlds. He is a curator and coowner of the Copro/Nason Gallery in Culver City, CA.

Customer Reviews

For the die-hard tiki fan
If you're a die-hard fan of tiki culture and art, this book will make a nice addition to your collection, but I've seen better. The book was filled with a LOT of photos of ethnic carvings... many of them not too tiki-like in nature. The back of the book, however, has several terrific, whimsical Shag art prints, so that makes it worth a look.

A Tiki Book for All Seasons
This is the best tiki book I have ever read, period.

Finally a book about tiki that is both entertaining, informative, and visually stunning. It approaches tiki from several different viewpoints, putting them all into perspective: the lounge-hipster scene, Art, Anthropology, etc.

The author is able to pull this off becuase he is a Cultural Anthropologist and a major player in the "New Brow" art scene as an owner of one of the most important LA area galleries in this catagory.

He and Shag, whose art is shown liberally in the book, have worked together for years.

The same can be said of his relationship with Leroy Schmaltz, the man who is responsible for much of what we in the Continental U.S. view as defining "Tiki", through his designs for Trader Vic's, et al. Much of his work is shown in the book.

The author is a world traveler, collector, and skilled photographer. His cultural photos are shown together with an abundant sampling of the authentic native artwork he has collected over the years.

Anyone interested in tiki from ANY standpoint, will certainly enjoy this book (even if they do nothing but look at the pictures).

Art Fun: Tiki Facts & Lore
A good read and a great look! Wonderful photos of the "real" tikis as well as contemporary re-incarnations in sculpture of Schmaltz and popular paintings by Shag. In a refreshingly non-academic style, the short readable essays offer lots of facts about the lovable, fascinating tiki icon past and present.