Textile length, 'Seapiece', screen-printed cotton, designed by Frances Burke for Ansett's Hayman Island Resort, Richmond, Victoria, Australia, 1948

Textile designer and textile printer. Born Melbourne, Victoria.  Burke and Morris Holloway established Burway Prints, Australia's first registered textile screen printery, 1937. This became Frances Burke Fabrics in 1942. Opened retail outlet Good Design (later known as New Design), in Hardware Street, Melbourne, 1948. Awarded MBE, 1970. Honorary Doctorate of Arts conferred at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 1987.

Burke, Frances

Richmond, Victoria, Australia

Use Frances Burke Fabrics Pty Ltd for work created after 1942 by the company (formerly Burway Prints).

Dr Frances Mary Burke MBE (10 January 1904 - 14 October 1994) was a textile designer and printer, businesswoman, artist and Australian design retailer and advocate. She is best known for her modernist minimal mid-twentieth century printed furnishing fabric designs and co-founding Burway Prints (Frances Burke Fabrics Pty Ltd from 1942), one of Australia’s earliest registered textile screen printeries. These mid-century modern textiles feature motifs drawn from nature including Australian flora and fauna and the sea, and also motifs inspired by Australian Aboriginal art and other cultures.
The Museum holds over 50 different Frances Burke textile designs, represented mainly as fabric lengths and swatches, but also as garments, scarves and table napkins. Titles of the designs range from Goanna, Reflections and Angel Fish to Totem, Tiger Lily and Crete. Some of Burke’s more ambitious designs, like her big, bold Black Opal design have a three dimensional painterly quality (MAAS collection 85/2243. Gift of Frances Burke under the Australian Government Taxation Incentives for the Arts Scheme, 1985). The collection demonstrates the scope and ambition of post-WWII Australian textile design and production.
Frances Burke’s commissioned works, produced in collaboration with designers and architects like Roy Grounds and Guilford Bell, were much publicized in local journals. The ‘Tiger Stripe’ textile design with singular horizontal curvelinear motif (MAAS collection 85/2453. Gift of Mrs Connie Cameron, 1985) proved to be one of her most popular designs. It was originally created for author Joan Lindsay (later Lady Lindsay), wife of the former Director (1942-1956) of the National Gallery of Victoria, Sir Daryl Lindsay.
“We have always been exclusive printers doing specialised jobs to order... Our first big job was for fabrics for the first Australian Embassy in the USA. We have done fabrics for lots of Australian Embassies - including Paris - since then. We have designed for Shipping Lines and Airlines, and for all sorts of residences from University colleges through to small homes. Hotels come into this too, and Motels, Civic Offices, Libraries and even Theatres.” (Rear cover, Frances Burke Fabrics Pty Ltd exhibition catalogue, 1996) 
Burke’s ongoing involvement in the development and recognition of Australian design, as an active member of Australia’s early professional art and design associations including the Contemporary Art Society (1938) and the Society of Industrial Designers (1947) is significant. She was an prolific writer and speaker, and a retailer of contemporary Australian design. These interconnected activities were not only of benefit for her own design business ventures, but also for the promotion of Australian design more generally.
“Soft furnishings should be regarded as a unit of total interior design. Simplicity in design is therefore most necessary for the purpose of relating them to other units like wall coverings, furniture, etc.” (Francis Burke, On printed textile design, Architecture & Arts, November 1957)
As a leading female exponent of well crafted mid-century modern design in Australia, Frances Burke helped introduce vibrant colours and bold motifs to the local vernacular, and it is this language of design that has become recognised internationally as something distinctly, and optimistically, Australian.
From https://collection.maas.museum/set/4009, accessed 19 June 2019

Frances Burke Fabrics Pty Ltd

85/2256-1 Textile length, 'Seapiece', screen-printed cotton, designed by Frances Burke for Ansett's Hayman Island Resort, Richmond, Victoria, Australia, 1948

POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Seapiece' textile length designed by Frances Burke

Object No. 85/2256-1

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