Stuart Low b. 1 January 1896

Also known as Stuart Lowe, Stewart Douglass Cyril Low
  • Designer (Architect / Interior Architect / Landscape Architect)
Low was an interior designer and founder member Society of Interior Designers of Australia, His career began in 1928. He worked out of a "Salon" in the St James Building, Elisabeth Street, Sydney and was the manager of Stuart Low Furniture Studio also in this building. The studio sold furnishings including furniture designed by Low and manufactured in Sydney.
Tags: furniture designer, furniture maker, interior designer

Stuart Lowe (also Low, also Stuart-Low), Sydney, (d.1966)

Stuart Lowe’s Sydney ”salon” operated out of the St James Building, 109 Elizabeth Street. Although his practice is said to have begun after the 1914-18 War, Lowe’s practice is first listed as “Broker and Dealer” in 1930. He was exhibiting at the Stuart Lowe Studio, St James Building as early as 1931.

Lowe was married to Rita Glasson (m.1926), later in a relationship with Beryl (“Bobbi”) Bishop ca.1954.1

On Lowe’s death in 1966, his practice became known as Stuart Lowe Studios.

Lowe was an original participant in the first group of SIDA members. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald on the appearance of the new organisation states that the first SIDA headquarters were located in Lowe’s 109 Elizabeth Street Salon.2

Lowe was an active participant in the industry and seems to have exhibited in the SIDA “Rooms on View” programme. His 1962 “Library for Morris West” from The David Jones Art Gallery’s “Sydney’s Ten Best Dressed Rooms” survives in the Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW.

1 Information from Michael Lech, curator, Sydney Living Museums.

2 “New Society to Advise on Interior Design.” Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 1951, p.12.

Writers:

Michael Bogle
Date written:
2012
Last updated:
2015