Mollie Grove | |
|---|---|
 1951 factory opening by PM Menzies at Dandenong - watched by Catherine Hardress and Mollie Grove | |
| Born | Edith Mary Grove 14 September 1909 |
| Died | 23 February 1996 |
| Education | Methodist Ladies College, Kew, Victoria |
| Known for | Weaving |
Edith Mary "Mollie" Grove (14 September 1909 - 23 February 1996) was an Australian weaver, textile designer, and business owner. [1]
Grove was born in 1909 in Hamilton, Victoria to Methodist minister John William Grove, and Daisy Blanche (nee Galloway). [1] The fourth of six children and the only girl, the family lived in Tasmania and Western Australia before settling in Victoria. [1] Grove attended the Methodist Ladies' College (MLC) in Kew, where her father served as its second Principal. [1]
She first met Catherine Hardress while studying an Applied Art course at Swinburne Technical College where Hardress was Head of the Fine Art Department. [2] Grove was first studying to become a concert pianist before taking up art, teaching art and crafts at the Elsternwick campus of MLC. [1] She travelled overseas at the behest of MLC to gather ideas to start up an art department at the school. [2] Arriving in England in 1935, she enrolled at the London School of Arts and Crafts. [3]
It was in England that she was reunited with Hardress who had arrived a few years earlier and was doing costume design for the Tunbridge Repertory Theatre in Kent. [3] They ended up sharing a studio, and it was here after being snowed in for three weeks that they planned a trip to the countryside. [4] It was at this Northampton cottage where Grove was first persuaded to try the loom and fell in love with weaving. [5] Upon returning to London she left the School of Arts and Crafts and enrolled instead with the Kensington Weavers. [2]
The three-month course allowed Grove to develop her skills by undertaking projects in carding, spinning, weaving, inlaying, and rug-making. [2] The craft of weaving was for her the perfect blend of artistic creativity, and the technical precision and skill that made her such a good pianist. [6] Under the tutelage of Frau Jorgens, a talented German weaver, Grove did an apprenticeship learning advanced weaving techniques. [2] She furthered her research by working with a chemist to study how yarn was affected by various dyes. [6]
Before returning to Australia in 1939, Hardress and Grove spent six months travelling Scandinavia and Russia gathering inspiration for their craft. [7] Grove was particularly interested in the industrial development of weaving in Finland and Sweden. [8] They arrived in Melbourne on 14 August 1939 on board the Dutch ship Arendskerk, [9] which less than a year later was sunk by a German submarine. [10] The women quickly found an ideal location for a new studio in the basement of the Royal Exchange Assurance Building on Queen Street, with a loom for Mollie and a theatre replica for Catherine. [11]
Their first shop was at the start of World War II displaying fabrics on urns in the store window of Batavia House. [5] The Australian government sent their tweeds to the United States in 1940 as part of a display for the New York World's Fair. [12] In March of 1940 an exhibition of their hand-woven fabrics at Hotel Australia was opened by then-Prime Minister Robert Menzies. [13] Their displays appeared the Royal Show in Melbourne as part of the Australian Wool Board's Wool Court, with their creation being chosen by Governor Sir Winston Dugan to present as a gift to the Premier. [14] Grove and Hardress are not only credited with the creation of beautiful fabrics but the advancement of the wool manufacturing industry in Australia. [14]
"This exhibition will, I am sure, open up a new vision of beauty to the people who see it. We are the greatest wool-producing country, and we boast that we produce the finest wool in the world. Here we will see things entirely made and designed by two women."
Robert Menzies,The Argus, 4 March 1940
With that, the weaving business eclarté was born, and Grove began by teaching the technical side of producing handwoven woollens. [15] The influence of the war made imported fashion hard to come by [15] and the growth in practice of the tradition of weaving gave rise to their early business success. [2] For the 21st birthday of Princess Elizabeth she handpicked one of their tweed blankets made from royal violet wool. [16] Offering tailored suits at half the price of comparable imported products and achieving an exclusivity deal with David Jones, eclarté became known as one of the best cloths in Australia. [17]
After working out of their Melbourne studio throughout the war years, the eclarté mills in Dandenong were opened by Robert Menzies on 18 December 1951. [18] While many considered weaving a traditionally feminine practice, two-thirds of their factory staff were men. [19] Grove and Hardress worked hard to make their company a joyful and nice place to work. Rather than just employing workers, the eclarte philosophy was "A man who works with his hands is a labourer, a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman, but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist." [20] They trained their community of artisans in all aspects of the work so they could perform a variety of tasks and not be bored. [2]
With the war period behind them, eclarté took on commissions developing furnishing fabrics for building projects, putting them in contact with such notable architects of the time as Robin Boyd, Roy Grounds, and Stephenson and Turner. [3] Among their significant commissions were upholstery for the Australian Academy of Science building in Canberra, curtains for the Prime Minister's Suite at Parliament House, and curtains and divan covers for the University of Melbourne. [3] Despite their glowing reputation and quality product, competition from big industry led to them downgrading their factory and moving to convert an old flour mill in Heathcote. [21]
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band that meets this definition of cloth can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques that can be done without looms.
Worsted is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead, a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham, formed a manufacturing centre for yarn and cloth in the 12th century, when pasture enclosure and liming rendered the East Anglian soil too rich for the older agrarian sheep breeds. In the same period, many weavers from the County of Flanders moved to Norfolk. "Worsted" yarns/fabrics are distinct from woollens : the former is considered stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than the latter.
The Argus was an Australian daily morning newspaper in Melbourne from 2 June 1846 to 19 January 1957, and was considered to be the general Australian newspaper of record for this period. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left-leaning approach from 1949. The Argus's main competitor was David Syme's more liberal-minded newspaper, The Age.
The Athenaeum or Melbourne Athenaeum at 188 Collins Street is an art and cultural hub in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1839, it is the city's oldest cultural institution.
Colin Campbell Watson was an Australian rules footballer in the Victorian Football League.
Feltex Carpets is an Australian manufacturer of residential and commercial carpets.
Henry Gregory was an Australian politician. He was a Ministerialist member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 1897 to 1911, representing the electorates of North Coolgardie (1897-1901) and Menzies (1901-1911). He was state Minister for Mines from 1901 to 1904 under George Leake and Walter James and Minister for Mines and Railways from 1905 to 1911 under Hector Rason, Newton Moore and Frank Wilson. He rose to become Treasurer from 1910 to 1911, a role that also entailed him acting as Premier if Wilson was absent, but lost his seat at the 1911 state election.
Polly Hurry, was an Australian painter. She was a founding member of the Australian Tonalist movement and part of the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society.
Sonia Revid was a dancer born in Riga, and based in Melbourne for much of her career.
The Hotel Australia was a former hotel in Melbourne, Australia. The hotel was built in 1939 on the site of the former Cafe Australia, and was demolished in 1989.
Mona Hessing (1933–2001) was an Australian fibre artist and weaver. She was also known as Mona Johnston. Hessing has been described as having made a 'very significant contribution from the late 1960s into the 1980s to the development of weaving as monumental public sculpture'.
The Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA), sometimes known simply as the Victorian Junior Association (VJA), was an open age Australian rules football competition and administrative body. It was the first successful junior football competition in Melbourne, and was in existence from 1883 until 1932.
Dorothea Francis was an Australian artist.
Lucy Osma Palmer Gallinger Tod was an American artist, writer, and arts educator, specializing in weaving, basketry, and other craft techniques.
Edith Amelia Kerr was an Australian teacher, headmistress and Presbyterian missionary.
Marcella Augusta Hempel, was a textile artist, second generation Bauhaus master weaver and lecturer in textiles. She was one of many émigré artists who came to Australia after the second world war, bringing training and expertise from Europe. She became a respected leader in the Australian Crafts Movement. Hempel designed and wove products such as rugs and scarves which were commissioned or exhibited by Australian companies, private collectors and craft and art galleries. Her work received a gold medal award from the Australian Wool Board. She lectured in Dresden then at the University of Applied Arts in Berlin, taught textile design at East Sydney Technical College, was the inaugural lecturer in textiles at the Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education and was conferred with a Honoris Causa award of Bachelor of Arts after retirement. Her woven travel rugs are held in national art collections.
Norah Gurdon was an Australian artist. Her first name is often misspelled Nora in many articles reviewing her work.
Jutta Feddersen was a German-born Australian fibre artist, sculptor, lecturer.
The Australian Academy of Art was a conservative Australian government-authorised art organisation which operated for ten years between 1937 and 1946 and staged annual exhibitions. Its demise resulted from opposition by Modernist artists, especially those associated with the Contemporary Art Society, though the influence of the Academy continued into the 1960s.
Catherine Hardess became Catherine Hardress was an Australian weaver, artist and designer. She and her partner, Mollie Grove, created a company and a factory that produced hand woven fabric.
