Dr Penelope Jackson MNZM is a New Zealand based Art Historian with strong links to Australia. She has an M.Phil (UQ) in Art History and a PhD in Creative Arts from CSU. Her main academic interest is in researching and writing about art crime. She is the Chair of the New Zealand Art Crime Research Trust. Her publications include: Art Thieves, Fakers and Fraudsters: The New Zealand Story (Awa Press), Females in the Frame: Women, Art, and Crime (Palgrave Macmillan) and The Art of Copying Art (Palgrave Macmillan). The latter was awarded Book of the Year (2023) at the Art Writing and Publishing Awards (AAANZ). She contributes regularly to the Journal of Art Crime. As a curator, Jackson is perhaps best known for her work with writer and illustrator, Lynley Dodd, having curated three exhibitions that have toured across New Zealand and Australia to 23 venues. She also curated the award-winning exhibition, Corrugations: the art of Jeff Thomson. In 2020 she was a University of Auckland writer in residence and in 2024 she was a writer in residence at the Booranga Writers Centre, Wagga Wagga. In 2023, she was awarded the honour of becoming a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to art crime research and the visual arts. In late 2024 she will be a Sir William Dobell Fellow at the Australian National University. Jackson also writes short fiction including One Degree Off: Stories of Singapore (2024) and others that have been published in anthologies such as New Writing 4WW. In her spare time, Penelope likes to knit!
