Joan Kerr (1938-2004), art historian, writer and lecturer, was responsible for several key reference texts on Australian art. She was educated, like Betty Churcher, at Somerville House in Brisbane before studying at the Universities of Queensland, Sydney, London and York. In 1969 she began tutoring at the University of Sydney. Eleven years later, after a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the history department of the ANU, and two years as President of the Art Association of Australia, she was appointed Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Sydney, a position she held until 1993. A foundation member of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand, during the 1990s Kerr was a Trustee of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW and a member of the National Portrait Gallery advisory committee. From 1997 she was a Professor at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at the Australian National University. Kerr published regularly on art and architecture from 1980 onward. Books she wrote or edited included Gothick Taste in the Colony of New South Wales (1980); From Sydney Cove to Duntroon (1982); Edmund Thomas Blacket 1817-1883 (1983); Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870 (1992); Heritage: The National Women's Art Book (1995); Past President (1999) and Artists and Cartoonists (1999).
