Professor Emeritus Michael Dunn retired as the Head of the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 2006. Born in Ashburton and raised in Canterbury, New Zealand, he graduated from the Canterbury School of Fine Arts with a degree in Painting before going on to do Honours and then his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne. He has a PhD in Art History from The University of Auckland. Professor Dunn has taught Art History for nearly 25 years and was Head of the University of Auckland's Art History Department before he was appointed to the Chair at Elam in 1994. He sat on the board of the Auckland Art Gallery from 1977 to 1996. He has published more than 24 books on artists and art-related topics as well as many papers and articles for specialist journals around the world.

Contents include: Early Carvers and Masons: 1860-1890 -- Public Statuary of the Victorian and Edwardian Periods -- The Origins of Local Sculpture -- Sculpture Between the Wars: 1918-1939 -- The La Trobe Scheme: Sculpture and the Art Schools: 1920-1960 -- Post-war Sculpture: 1945-1965 -- Figurative Sculpture Post-1960 -- Abstraction and Modernism: 1960-1990 -- Post-object and Conceptual Art 1969 to the Present -- ontemporary Maori Sculpture -- Contemporary Sculpture in New Zealand -- Crisis of Identity: Sculpture Since 2000.