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Joanne Drayton

New Zealand art historian and biographer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 19, 2025
Entity authorityQ106089387 ↗
Source-derived summary

Joanne Drayton is a New Zealand art historian, biographer and nonfiction writer.

Drayton graduated from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch in 1998 with a PhD on "Edith Collier: Her life and work (1885–1964)". She adapted her thesis for publication by the Canterbury University Press the following year with the same title.

Drayton has tutored in art history at Whanganui Polytechnic and lectured at the Auckland University of Technology. In 2019 she was writer in residence at the University of Auckland.

The Search for Anne Perry was reviewed by Kirkus and summarised as: "Occasionally uneven but a pleasure for Perry’s loyal fans and a book that is likely to win her some new ones as well".

She won the 2019 General Non-Fiction Award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Joanne Drayton” as new Zealand art historian and biographer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1998, 1885, 1964, 2019—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Joanne, Drayton and Zealand can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as new Zealand art historian and biographer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q106089387. VIAF identifies the subject as 84205199. The Library of Congress control number is n00007480. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1885, 1964 and 2019.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Joanne Drayton”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Joanne Drayton primary sources, Joanne Drayton archive and Joanne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Joanne Drayton”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Joanne Drayton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.