From Dictionary to Database

Design & Art Australia Online is a major extension of The Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. Here’s how it evolved:

In the 1970s at the University of Sydney, Bernard Smith began research into Australian content for a new edition of Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. The first editor was Eve Buscombe.

The project then evolved into an Australian Research Council supported project for a comprehensive dictionary of Australian art, to publish full original biographies of all Australian artists, to identify the artists’ work and interpret it critically within its contemporary context. In 1981, after Smith’s retirement, the project was taken over by Professor Joan Kerr, who succeeded in maintaining Australian Research Council funding and refocussed the research to a manageable series of publications.

The initial online project, the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, adopted a framework provided by Kerr’s singular approach to the collection and interpretation of a dictionary. Kerr’s theoretical framework addressed art history as an analysis of cultural practice, based on a culture in use, not relying solely on the received wisdom of existing mediators. This is especially important for the way she included Indigenous art into the canon of Australian art.

The first draft of Dictionary of Australian Artists, Working paper 1: Painters, Photographers and Engravers, 1770 – 1870, A-H was published in 1984 with financial assistance from: The Australian Research Grants Scheme, The University of Sydney, The Myer Foundation, The Australian Academy of the Humanities.

In the completed Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 (Oxford University Press 1992), Kerr created a tessellated panorama of visual culture, unpredicted by any other scholar. Kerr extended her approach in Heritage: The National Women’s Art Book (Craftsman House 1995), which was made possible by grants from the Gordon Darling Foundation, Visual Arts Craft Board of the Australia Council, NSW Ministry for the Arts, the NSW Ministry for the Status and Advancement of Women.

Meanwhile, in 1994 Prof Vivien Johnson published Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert (grants from Macquarie University Research Grants and AITSIS). Johnson’s inclusive research into Indigenous art echoes Kerr’s. Johnson’s research combines cultural sensitivity with an all embracing scope, making her a key researcher in this field.

Joan Kerr was diagnosed with cancer in 2003. In the same year, the first meeting of prospective partners for the new Dictionary of Australian Artists Online was held. The group comprised staff from UNSW, University of Sydney, State Library of NSW, National Library of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW. Kerr, recognising that her cancer is terminal, invited Vivien Johnson to be her successor as Editor-in-Chief, citing in part the centrality of Indigenous art to Australia.

Joan Kerr died in February of 2004. Later that year, the Australian Research Council confirmed the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online’s first Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities grant and work begins.

Project Director Leonie Hellmers joined the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online in mid-2005, leading a team of technical and content staff to build and populate the first iteration of the site. The site was launched in 2007 at UNSW by David Gonski AC and NewSouth Global Professor Vivien Johnson at the UNSW Chancellery and at the University of Sydney by Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC, VCO and Professor Roger Benjamin.

At the completion of the ARC funded development of Dictionary of Australian Artists Online (DAAO v.1), the University of Sydney and University of NSW joined forces to support the maintenance of the system, providing funding for a part-time editor and technical maintenance, as well as governance through the DAAO management committee.

Further ARC LIEF funding was granted in 2010 to transform Dictionary of Australian Artist Online into Design & Art Australia Online, a collaborative, open source and comprehensive e-research tool. Dr Gillian Fuller joined the project as Research Director later that year, charged with the task of carrying out the site redevelopment.

The rebuild coincided with Prof Vivien Johnson’s departure from UNSW. After five years at the helm, Johnson asked Prof Ross Harley to succeed her as Lead Chief Investigator.

Johnson remained a member of the Editorial Board but stepped down as Editor-in-Chief; A/Prof Joanna Mendelssohn and Dr Anita Callaway were nominated as joint Editors-in-Chief in her place.

Details of how the transformation evolved can be found at our Blog

A wholly new site and redesigned database, Design & Art Australia Online, was launched in late July 2011.