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Biographical Entry

Hall Best, Marion (1905 - 1988)

 
Career Highlights / Online Resources / Published Resources
 
Born: Australia (Dubbo, New South Wales)
 
Interior Designer
 
One of the most influential interior designers in Australia during the 1950s and 60s. Hall Best opened the design studio Marion Best Pty.Ltd. in Woollahra, Sydney in 1938, which showcased the work of the best Australian designers. Hall Best also commissioned fabric designs from artists. Her work was represented in the 1993 retrospective Sydney Style.

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Career Highlights
Marion Hall Best, nee Burkitt, was the child of a country town doctor and initially trained as a nurse. She reinvented herself with the help of her sister, artist Dora Sweetapple, and studied art and design, and architecture by correspondence.

Her design studio Marion Best Pty.Ltd. showcased the work of Australian designers including textile designer Frances Burke and furniture designers Clement Meadmore and Gordon Andrews.

During the Second World War when modern fabrics were in short supply she commissioned fabric designs from artists including Alice Danciger, Elaine Haxton, Amie Kingston, Anne Gilmore Rees, Thea Proctor, Douglas Annand and Dora Sweetapple, under the label Marion Best Fabrics.

Hall Best's own work was influenced by her enthusiasm for the Fauves, particularly Matisse, the brightly coloured handcrafts of Chile and the stage design of Oliver Messell. She used broad sweeps of strong colour and luminous glazes.

Hall Best's work was exhibited in the 1993 retrospective 'Sydney Style' , Historic Houses Trust of NSW. Her work is represented in the archives of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW and the National Gallery of Australia.


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Online Resources
 
Published by Frances Burke Textile Resource Centre on AustehcWeb, 2000.
Project funded by Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR).
Comments or corrections to cyberfibres@rmit.edu.au
Updated 1 April 2003. Prepared by: Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2000 RMIT University.
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