CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Kate Daw

Australian artist (1965–2020)

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 revisionMar 8, 2025
Entity authorityQ21996656
Source-derived summary

Kate Daw (1965 - September 2020) was an Australian visual artist and former Head of Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.

Career

Kate Daw was born in 1965 in Esperance, Western Australia, and her family moved to Sorrento when she was five. She initially studied art at the Western Australian Institute of Technology but dropped out when she was 18. After moving to Melbourne, Daw graduated in Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 1989, and began exhibiting work extensively from 1992.

Her work incorporated canvas, ceramic, fabric and paper, though she later moved away from painting. She began a Master of Fine Arts degree at Glasgow School of Art in 1995, completing it back in Australia at RMIT University, and also had several international artist residencies through the 1990s and 2010s.

She collaborated with Scottish artist Stewart Russell on a series of works beginning in 2007, including a residency at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where they developed Two Homes, Another World (2016), a project with Indigenous Australian football player Liam Jurrah, and the installation Civil Twilight End (2011) at Melbourne Docklands.

In the 2000s, Daw taught Painting at VCA, where she also begun her Doctorate, with the thesis titled The Between Space: narrative in contemporary visual practice. After five years as Head of Painting, she was made Head of Art at the VCA in 2018.

After undergoing treatment for cancer, Kate Daw died 7 September 2020, aged 55.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Kate Daw” as australian artist (1965–2020). 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—1965, 2020, 1989, 1992—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1965. The account is most persuasive where Kate, Australian and artist can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as australian artist (1965–2020). 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 Mar 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q21996656. VIAF identifies the subject as 1785162238564113810004. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 2020, 1989 and 1992.

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 “Kate Daw”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kate Daw primary sources, Kate Daw archive and Kate 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 “Kate Daw”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Kate Daw” 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.