This event is a collaboration between Dr Nanette Carter, independent scholar Robyn Oswald-Jacobs, authors of Frances Burke: Designer of Modern Textiles and curators of the NGV’s Department of Fashion and Textiles. Carter and Oswald-Jacobs will lead a group discussion focused on examples of the work of Australia’s leading textile designer of the post-war period chosen from the collection and made available for this special viewing by NGV staff.

As a young woman, Burke chose to ‘design the world she wanted’. During World War II when imported printed fabrics were scarce, she sold dress fabrics and hemmed lengths of furnishing fabric in her bright modern designs allowing Melbourne women to ‘make do’ in style. Afterwards Burke continued her business designing and printing while lecturing, writing about design, advocating for design through her work as a founding member of the Society of Designers for Industry from 1947 and collaborating with leading architects including Sir Roy Grounds.