INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER - Shirley de Vocht [nee:
Martin] (1929 - 2003)
Handcoloured photograph of Shirley Martin
taken by Hector Brown, Sydney, c.1945, MAAS collection, 2002/88/1-4/1
Introduction
Shirley was the daughter of an
Australian Aboriginal father and grandfather.
Shirley de Vocht [nee Martin]
was a female industrial designer based in Sydney who had a long and
illustrious career as a post-WWII Australian textile and ceramic designer.
She is best known for designing the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games towel, but
there is much more to her remarkable design industry success story.
In 1948, Shirley married John de
Vocht, a photographer who was in the Dutch Air Force. Their son Vaughn
Willem de Vocht was born in 1960. Their daughter Nicolle Leigh de Vocht was
born in 1962.
John de Vocht had trained in England and was sent to Australia in lieu of
being sent to the Dutch East Indies. Initially based at the Archerfield
Aerodrome in Qld, John de Vocht moved to Bradfield Park, Sydney where he met
Shirley de Vocht around 1945. He then went onto the East Indies for two and
a half years, and continued to correspond with Shirley until they married in
1948. (Source:
Powerhouse Museum Archive)
Did You Know?
1956 Olympic Games Dri-Glo towel design was created by Shirley
Olympic Games
towel designed by Shirley de Vocht for Dri-Glo Towels, Sydney, 1956,
MAAS collection, 2002/88/8
From 1951 to 1959,
Shirley’s last major industrial employment was with Dri-Glo Towels
in Five Dock. While there, Shirley was invited to create a towel
design for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games (the image at top of
this post). The brief stated that the design was to include the
Olympic Torch. Shirley added the Olympic Rings, a map of Australia,
and ‘because I love Australian animals so much, I was determined
that I would have them on the towel’
(Newspaper article,
‘Ay, there’s the rub’, interview with Shirley de Vocht, c2000).
The towel was produced in green and yellow, colours Shirley felt she
may have helped introduce to represent Australia. The red and white
version of the towel (illustrated above) was produced for her own
personal use. After the games, the torch on the towel was replaced
by a surfer to extend the design into a marketable product.
(Source:
Inside the Collection) |
During her career, she held
numerous positions, always seeking more technically challenging projects and
producing many marketable product designs, some incorporating Aboriginal
motifs and symbols. Her freelance textile designs feature Australian flora
such as native heath, flannel flowers and wattle. Her work was selected for
international exhibition and for inclusion in numerous competitions.
Shirley de Vocht continued to work as an artist after the 1960s, painting
flora and fauna, including endangered species such as the native cat, the
quoll and the snowy numbat, onto mass-produced ceramic plates. Shirley
passed away in 2003. (Source:
Inside the Collection)
Education
Shirley de Vocht studied at East Sydney Technical College (ESTC) from 1944
through to 1946 (2 evenings and one day ie Fridays) under Phyllis Shillito
(1895-1980), an English designer who had come to Australia from the
Yorkshire Textile Centre.
(Source:
Powerhouse Museum Archive)
Training &
Employment
During this same
period [1944-46], Shirley embarked on one of her
very first jobs. She took on the technically challenging role of translating
Australian artist Russell Drysdale’s paintings and drawings into
multi-coloured designs for screenprinted furnishing fabrics. At the time,
she was just 17 and working in the Design Department of Silk and Textile
Printers (STP) in Darlinghurst.
Art in Industry exhibition and Modernage fabrics
produced by Shirley de Vocht (nee Martin) for Silk and Textile Printers,
Sydney, 1946, MAAS collection, 2002/88/1-3
In 1947, Shirley went to work for Modern Ceramic Products
(MCP) at 107 Redfern Street, Redfern, and worked with MCP till 1948 under
the MCP manager, Mr. Impey.
Examples of her
work
|
Gouache on paper, designed by Shirley de
Vocht |
‘Poppies’ furnishing fabric designed by
Shirley de Vocht (nee Martin) for Coverings & Co, Sydney, 1950, MAAS
collection, 2002/88/6 |
Roses’ furnishing fabric designed by
Shirley de Vocht (nee Martin) for
Coverings & Co, Sydney, 1950,
MAAS collection, 2002/88/6
|
Between 1949 and 1950, Shirley worked as a textile
designer at Tennyson Textile Mills Pty Ltd, Gladesville, and between 1949
and 1951, she also worked for Coverings & Co Pty Ltd, 72 Gardners Road,
Mascot producing jacquard weave designs. During theses years, 1949 to 1951,
Shirley also created freelance textile designs of Australian flora including
native heath, flannel flowers, wattle and other Australian flora. Several of
these were forwarded to FW Grafton & Co Ltd in England in 1952 where one was
purchased for production while another was exhibited in England before being
returned to Australia.
In 1954, two of Shirley de Vocht's textile designs were selected for
inclusion in the Leroy-Alcorso design competition where the 100 best entries
received were exhibited. The exhibition included a textile design by Douglas
Annand which won first prize.
From 1951 to 1959, Shirley worked as a designer with Dri-Glo Towels Pty Ltd,
213-253 Parramatta Road, Five Dock where she designed a towel for the 1956
Melbourne Olympic Games, among other towel designs, including a daffodil
design and a complex merging colour design with vertical stripes.
(Source:
Powerhouse Museum Archive)
Shirley designed this ‘Bambi’ fabric, her mother
made the dress. Photo c1946
Experiences &
Opportunities
Shirley helped realize Russell Drysdale’s artwork
under the direction of Mary Curtis, head designer at STP. The project
provided her with a challenging formative experience which no doubt stood
her in good stead for the remainder of her career as a female industrial
designer.
Drysdale’s ‘Tree Forms’ was created from drawings taken from a sketchbook
and arranged informally to complete a full screen. On completion, ‘Tree
Forms’ was considered suitable for furnishing fabrics and was produced as a
12-colour print on heavy wool for furnishing with tan as a dominating
colour, and also a monotone print.
‘Stone and Wood’ used a Drysdale motif to create a repeat on a large scale.
The design employed a central motif enclosed by a ‘rock-like form’ as a
large pattern covering a full screen for curtains using 10 colours on heavy
cotton and light wool fabrics. The process was neither simple nor
straightforward:
‘Several screens are used in the printing of a multi-colour design; one
colour imposed upon another gives a third, so that in the finished product
there may be more colours than the number of screens used. Seven or more
screens may be bought to the printing room.’ (CM Foley, 1947, p 3).
Surprisingly for the time, women artists represented approximately one third
of the artists featured in STP’s ‘Modernage Range’. Just before leaving STP,
Shirley also helped prepare and install the ‘Art in Industry’ Modernage
Fabrics display in the ballroom of the Australia Hotel in Sydney. This
exhibition later travelled to the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne.
(Source:
Inside the Collection)
Conservator Dee McKillop
at the Powerhouse Museum using a microscope for precision
to conserve Shirley's work
Links:
Designing
Towels for the Olympics!
Primary
Middle
Secondary
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Critical and creative thinking
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Numeracy
Australian
Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures
1. Shirley's fame was creating a design
for DriGlo towels for the Olympics in Melbourne in 1956. Look at the
following examples of Olympic towel designs for the 2012 and 2016 Games as
well as Shirley's design:
2. Using one
element, a flower or an animal, from Shirley's design, stylise this element
to create a more modern towel design for the Australian competitors for the
next Olympics.
Ensure
that there are Indigenous features in the design and that it is distinctly
Australian so that it is recognised immediately by the rest of the world.
You will need to
embed the next Olympic city's logo for it to be considered official.
3. eBay is selling
Andy Murray's towel for Rio for $AU54.66
If it costs $AU18
to make, work out the profit on 23,000 sales and 55,000 sales.
16% of all sales
goes to the Rio Games Committee. Work out the money going to the Committee.
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