Born in London in 1933. In 1952 she received a National Diploma of Art and Design from the Eastbourne College of Art, England, and in 1956 she gained an Interior Design Degree from the Royal college of Art in London, England. Before moving to Australia in 1961 Dorrough worked as an interior designer for Sir Hugh Casson in London and for a firm of architects (Harrison and Abramovitz) in New York City. In Australia, she worked in interior design for McConnell, Smith and Johnson and lectured in the architecture faculty at the UNSW. She later studied at the City Art Institute, Sydney, where she graduated with a Masters of Visual Art in 1984. In 2000 she studied Renaissance Painting Techniques at the Charlie Shead Studio School, Sydney, NSW.
She played a major role in the creation of the Crafts Council of Australia also designing their offices and the Crafts Council gallery, Sydney.
Dorrough works across different media including drawing, painting, printmaking (particularly etching) and sculpture. Dorrough is well known for her textile wall hangings, titled Twelve Hangings (1980) held in NSW Parliament House, depicting botanic images, as she is for her permanent mixed media installation of life-sized convict silhouettes, Convict Shadows (1991), at The Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, NSW.
In 1987 Dorrough was awarded an Overseas Fellowship Grant Residency in Italy by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. In 1984 she received the Post Graduate Award for work towards her Masters Degree from the Commonwealth Department of Education. In 1978 Dorrough received a Senior Fellowship from the Craft Board of the Australia Council and in 1975 she was awarded a grant also from the Craft Board of the Australia Council. In 1956 Dorrough was awarded a Travelling Scholarship from the Royal College of Art, London, and she also won the Silver Medal from the College the same year.
Dorrough is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Ararat Gallery, Parliament House, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse), Queensland Art Gallery, West Australian Art Gallery, Tamworth Art Gallery, Wollongong Art Gallery, The Orange City Collection, Arts Victoria Festival Collection, Melbourne Stage College Collection, NSW Kindergarten Teachers Union Study Collection and the Historic Houses Trust.
Dorrough has completed commissions for the Regent Hotel, Sydney; Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney; Bond University, Queensland; IBM Australia; and NSW Parliament House, Sydney.
- Writers:
- Stella Downer
Joanna Mendelssohn
Michael Bogle
- Date written:
- 2007
- Last updated:
- 2018
