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This richly illustrated book tells of the exceptional career of Sydney artist Heather Dorrough, 1933-2018. Born in London, she trained in Interior Design at the Royal College of Art, worked in London and New York on major projects before arriving in Australia in 1962. Over the next five decades Dorrough worked across an unusually broad range of creative projects spanning design, craft, and art. With her first striking modernist textiles she was adopted into the craft movement, and took part in the formation of the Craft Councils of Australia, and NSW. She pioneered the development of machine embroidery, and the sculptural use of fabric, with highly successful exhibitions and large scale public commissions, bridging the Craft-Art divide.
With unswerving commitment to seeing her practice through the lens of her life, Dorrough made amongst the most admired feminist works of the 1980s, her ‘Self Portraits’, body casts, and sculptural installations in Australia and overseas gaining her recognition in the contemporary art world. In later years, ever remaking herself, she turned to painting and printmaking to capture the spirit of her home environment, the dark gleaming beauty of Dyarubbin/the Hawkesbury River.
With an in depth biography by life partner and some time collaborator, Terry Dorrough, a wealth of photographs, a forward by art historian Christine France, and analytical essays by arts writer/curators Anne Brennan, Peter Emmett, and Julie Ewington, this book explores the interconnections between Heather Dorrough’s rich life and multi-faceted practice, and makes a valuable contribution to Australia’s cultural history.
