Marion Hall Best: Interiors
This exhibition colourfully charts the work of Marion Hall Best (1905-1988), one of Australia’s first and most influential independent interior designers, displaying original furniture, fabrics, furnishings and design schemes.
Best’s career spanned four decades from the mid–1930s, a period of transition from the department store decorators and art furnishers of the 1920s, to the independent professional designers of today.
Her interiors vibrated with bold colours and patterns and a signature of her commissioned interiors was her vibrant glazed painted finishes on walls and ceilings.
Best introduced the latest of international modernism in design to Australians through her shops in Rowe Street Sydney and Queen Street Woollahra, which were an inspiration to the local design profession.
Tour history
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW
7 February – 22 March 2020
Canberra Museum and Gallery, ACT
23 March – 15 June 2019
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre, NSW
14 December 2018 – 17 February 2019
National Wool Museum, Geelong, VIC
13 September – 25 November 2018
Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW
23 June – 19 August 2018
Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, NSW
10 March – 3 June 2018
This exhibition toured from 2018 to 2020.
Related
Marion Best Fabrics: artist designed textiles
Marion Best Fabrics, established around 1940, was the first example in Australia of a group of artists being commissioned to design textiles
The colour-filled career of Marion Hall Best
Interior designer Marion Hall Best had a love of colour and an uncanny ability to use it to transform a room. Museums of History NSW holds the largest collection of Best’s work
The interior design of Seven Elizabeth Street
Marion Hall Best, known professionally as Marion Best, was one of Australia’s pre-eminent interior designers and her first major commission was the fit out of the new apartment block, Seven Elizabeth Street, in 1939–40
The Society of Interior Designers of Australia (SIDA)
An introduction to the founding, role and objectives of SIDA