As a Curator Emeritus in Anthropology at the Royal B.C. Museum, Peter Macnair co-authored The Magic Leaves: A History of Haida Argillite Carving (Royal B.C. Museum, 1984, 2002) with Alan L. Hoover, former Manager of Anthropology at the Royal B.C. Museum. It features more than 200 photographs of argillite carvings from the Musuem to chronicle the history of the art form among the Haida since it began in the early 1800s. "Argillite is a dense, black shale mined from a quarry on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), reserved for the exclusive use of Haida carvers," according to the press material. The photos are by Andrew Niemann and Burt Story.

Macnair also co-authored, with Alan Hoover and Kevin Neary, The Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Northwest Coast Indian Art (Royal B.C. Museum, 1984), photographs of works by 39 artists from a exhibit that toured Canada and the United Kingdom in in the 1970s and early 1980s. It has been reprinted a dozen times. Macnair also contributed a study of Kwakiutl winter dances in the early 1970s. More recently Peter Macnair co-authored Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art (University of Washington Press, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2006) with Daina Augaitis, a chief curator and associate director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Marianne Jones, producer and director for a CBC television series, and Nika Collison (Jisgung) of Skidegate, a curator at the Haida Gwaii Museum at Qay'llnagaay.

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
Down from the Shimmering Sky: Masks of the Northwest Coast
The Magic Leaves: A History of Haida Argillite Carving
Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art

BOOKS:

The Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Northwest Coast Indian Art (Royal B.C. Museum, 1984; 2007)

The Magic Leaves: A History of Haida Argillite Carving (Royal B.C. Museum, 1984, 2002).

Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art (University of Washington Press, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2006).

[BCBW 2007] "QCI" "Art" "Anthropology" "First Nations" "Indianology"