A Most Generous Scholar – Joan Kerr, Art and Architectural Historian.
Joan Kerr (1938-2004) was the author of ground-breaking art histories that included the work of women, Aboriginal artists and minor genres, consistent with her democratic approach to Australia’s visual culture.
A rigorous academic, she was also a larrikin intellectual who relished a good argument. There were many of them and the telling of her life makes a fascinating story.
Original, entertaining and often controversial, Joan Kerr was a one-of-a-kind scholar. Susan Steggall’s biography of Kerr is essential reading for all those interested in women’s lives, cultural studies and the intimate histories of art and architecture.
