Vivien Johnson is an Australian sociologist, writer on Indigenous Australian art, and editor-in-chief of the Dictionary of Australian Artists

Dictionary of Australian Artists

The Dictionary of Australian Artists was the outcome of a project begun in the 1970s at the University of Sydney under the leadership of Bernard Smith and funded by the Australian Research Council...

 Online.

Johnson is notable for the publication of several key reference works in the field of contemporary Indigenous Australian art

Contemporary Indigenous Australian art

Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians. It is generally regarded as beginning with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in 1971, involving artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri...

, including Western Desert Artists: A Biographical Dictionary (1995), Lives of the Papunya Tula

Papunya Tula

Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as "dot painting"...

 Artists (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Papunya (2010). In 2005 she was made Professor of New Media Narrative and Theory at the University of New South Wales

University of New South Wales

The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

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