The Victorian Tapestry Workshop

The Victorian Tapestry Workshop is based in Melbourne and is one of the world’s centres for the art form.

The Australian Tapestry Workshop, as it is now known, was established in 1976 to produce innovative, exciting and rich artworks in collaboration with artists who work in many mediums, the weavers of their designs and the dyers who create the hues for each piece. The model for the Workshop was the Dovecot, Edinburgh’s tapestry studio, and Archie Brennan, then the Dovecot’s director, was influential at the start of this ambitious project to create a world-class tapestry studio for Australia. Along the way the Workshop has worked with designers, artists and architects to create more than 500 tapestries that hang in halls, public spaces and private houses.

Modern Australian Tapestries is a book about the first decades of the Workshop. Edited by Sue Walker, the first director of the Australian Tapestry Workshop, the book explores some of the pieces that the studio has woven and features works by Australian and international artists. It is laid-out mostly in double-page spreads with text, and photographs of the original work and the resulting tapestry. A few of the pieces have extra photographs, and text explaining more about these. Some of the artists and makers in the book are linked below. (Please be aware that these websites may show pictures of people who are deceased.)

https://www.austapestry.com.au/weaver/leonie-bessant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Boyd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Petyarre

https://www.artnet.com/artists/frank-stella

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/munduwalawala-ginger-riley

_{Thank you to the friend of the studio who has lent this colourful and interesting book.}