Juliette Peers

Juliette Peers
March 2025
Born	abt. 1965 (age 59–60) Melbourne, Australia
Other names	Juliet Peers
Alma mater	University of Melbourne, Deakin University
Occupation(s)	Art historian, curator, artist, writer

Juliette Peers, also credited as Juliet Peers, is an Australian art historian, curator, artist and writer, based in Central Victoria, Australia. She is an advocate for feminist art, with a significant body of work focused on overlooked but notable female artists.

Biography

Peers was born in Melbourne, Australia. She obtained a B.A. from the University of Melbourne, a graduate diploma in Museum Studies from Victoria College, Melbourne in 1988, ^[1] and a doctorate from Deakin University in 1999. ^[2]

From 1994 to 2019, Peers lectured at the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT. ^{[3] [4] [5]} She also edited the Australian contemporary art magazine Artlink ^[6] and contributed to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, including entries for Edward Officer, Isabel Tweddle, and Karl Duldig. Peers is a life member of the Women’s Art Register ^{[4] [ independent source needed ]}.

Peers has curated numerous exhibitions in Australia, Europe, and North America. Her book More than Just Gummies was described as "an indispensable resource for art historians, curators, collectors, artists, dealers, auction houses and students alike. ^[7]

Notable exhibitions

• the Completing the Picture: Women Artists and the Heidelberg School exhibition (1992), which highlighted hidden figures who worked alongside the Heidelberg School. ^[8] The exhibition attracted 100,000 visitors across Australia; ^[5] and
• the Filling the Gap project, which similarly sought to highlight unsung female artists and close gender gaps in the historical record. ^[9]

Major publications

Books

• What no man had ever done before (Dawn Revival Press, 1992), co-authored with Victoria Hammond ^[10]
• Completing the picture: women artists and the Heidelberg era (Artmoves, 1992)
• The fashion doll: from BeÌbeÌ Jumeau to Barbie (Berg, 2004) ^{[11] [12]}
• Clifford Bayliss, 1912-1989: surrealist drawings from the 1940s, (Bridget McDonnell Gallery, 1995)
• Anne Marie Power (Telos Art Publishing, 2001)
• Sculpture: the McClelland Gallery Permanent Collection (McClelland Gallery, 1989)
• The 2 Pi r Group: Meg Benwell, Toni Bucknell, Isabel Davies, Wendy Kelly, Maureen McDermott, Rachel Rovay, Josie Telfer, Lillian Townsend, Aloma Treister, Pam Wragg, Maxienne Tritton Young (2 Pi r Artists, 1999)
• The new sculpture in Australia: Australian art nouveau sculpture 1880-1920
• More than just gumtrees: a personal, social and artistic history of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (Dawn Revival Press, 1993)
• Cafe Petrushka: a slice of Melbourne's artistic life of the 1930s (McClelland Gallery, 1990).

Essays

Peers has contributed essays and commentary to:

• A garden for all seasons: an artist's view of the Royal Botanic Gardens edited by Anne Graham (Craftsman House, 1998)
• Louie B. Riggall (1868-1918) (Latrobe Regional Gallery, 1995)
• The women's art register (Women's Art Register, 2005), Hope Safe: Kate Just (Blurb, 2014)
• Outrage, obscenity and madess: (sex, vile gossip, art and illustration): Melbourne's Pictorial weekly budget, The citizen, Banner of truth and Police news: 1875-2015 by Elizabeth Gertsakis (William Mora Galleries, 2015)
• Annette Bezor (Florence Lynch Gallery, 2003)
• Judith M Perrey: $b Memorial Retrospective (Victorian Artists' Society Galleries, 2021)
• Erica Mcgilchrist: for the record (Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2017)
• The full majesty of nature: the collection of Dr Samuel Arthur Ewing (The Ian Potter Museum of Art, 2002)
• The story that we make is the song that we sing, (Wollongong City Gallery, 1993), Into the Light Recovering Australia's Lost Women Artists : Into the Light Donor Circle Acquisitions 2021.

Articles

Peers has published articles in Artlink, Art and Australia, Australasian Victorian Studies Journal, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, Australian Journal of Art, This Australia, Australian Cultural History, Journal of Australian Studies, La Trobe Library Journal, Australian Women's Book Review, Art Monthly Australia, Quadrant, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Australian Journal of Biography and History, Eureka Street, Australian Historical Studies, Australian Quarterly, Screen Education, Southerly.

References

1. Peers, Juliet (1988). "Women's history, social history and textile collections [thesis]". Trove. Victoria College (Vic.). Department of Museum Studies. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
2. Peers, Juliet (1 January 1999). Dream dolls : misogyny and political mythology in fin de siecle Australian culture (thesis thesis). Deakin University.
3. "Contributors". Artlink. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
4. "Women and the Arts in Central Victoria: 1890s to mid-20th century and beyond". Eureka Centre . Retrieved 8 March 2025.
5. Lahey, John. "Women Submerged: Oil on Troubled Waters" . The Age. Melbourne, Australia. p. 18. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
6. Women's Art Register. Ongoing. Artist's File: Juliette Peers. Richmond Library, Melbourne.
7. Clark, Jane (1994). "More than Just Art" (PDF). Art and Australia magazine. 32 (1): 48.
8. Lancashire, Rebecca (26 October 1991). "Searching for the Lost Women of Heidelberg" . The Age. pp. Extra 5. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
9. "Filling the Gap". Museums and Galleries of NSW. 2 December 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
10. "A New Light on Old Sins" . The Sydney Morning Herald. 24 July 1993. p. 45. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
11. Whitley, Zoe (2006). "The Fashion Doll: From Bébé Jumeau to Barbie by Juliette Peers". Fashion Theory. 10 (3): 405–408. doi:10.2752/136270406778050950.
12. Breward, Christopher (2007). "The Politics of Fashion: The Politics of Fashion Studies". Journal of Contemporary History. 42 (4): 673–681. ISSN   0022-0094.

External links

• Capp, Fiona. 1987. "Rediscovering Melbourne's Unsung Sculptors." The Age (Melbourne), May 6, 1987, 2.
• Burke, Janine. 1994. "Artists and Friends." The Age (Melbourne), 19 March 1994, 8.