Philip Jones

Biography

Philip Jones has worked as a curator in the South Australian Museum’s Department of Anthropology since 1984. His doctoral thesis concerned the history of the Museum’s anthropological collections. His fieldwork in the Simpson Desert region has resulted in several publications on the region’s history and ethnography. He has curated more than 30 exhibitions at the South Australian Museum, ranging from Aboriginal art to the history of exploration. He is currently writing on Aboriginal material culture, the life and work of the colonial artist George French Angas, and Australia’s Muslim cameleers. Ochre and Rust, his 2007 book of essays on museum objects and the Australian frontier, won the inaugural Prime Minister’s literary award for non-fiction.