Name

Keith Avent

Culture

Australian

Gender

Male

Birth date

active by 1949

Birth place

Australia View on map Close map

Occupations

Art historian | Scientist

Summary

Worked: Australia (VIC, ACT).

Biography

Keith Avent, a retired agricultural scientist with the CSIRO and prominent Woden Rotarian (1971-2013), became a volunteer with the National Gallery of Australia in 1994 after a conversation with Tim Fisher a former Curator of Australian Drawings, at a Rotary Club presentation. Avent later worked with Andrew Sayers, Senior Curator of Australian Drawings and Roger Butler Senior Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings committing three days a week to curatorial projects.

Initially Avent was tasked with reviewing the catalogue records of the Australian Drawing Collection, including verifying titles, dates, medium and provenance from original acquisition documents and primary research. He later reviewed the collection of Australian sketchbooks. He also worked on a number of particular projects related to curatorial priorities producing important reports. These included Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil: A Review of Content and Context, 1999; the analysis of the Arthur Boyd St Francis images; the original titles of the NGA Joy Hester drawings; and the detailed examination of the previously uncatalogued Barrett Reid collection.

Keith Avent continued his research at the Gallery until 2013. 

[Roger Butler, 2023]

Last Updated

06 Dec 2023