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Eirene Mort (born Irene Mort; 17 November 1879 - 1 December 1977) was an Australian artist, illustrator and designer, particularly noted for incorporating motifs of Australian flora and fauna into her designs.

Early life and education
Mort was born in Woollahra, Sydney, on 17 November 1879,  third of the five children of Canon Henry Wallace Mort, rector of All Saints' Woollahra, and Kate Macintosh née Isaacs, and a granddaughter of Henry Mort, a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. (Although named Irene by her parents, she preferred to use the spelling Eirene.) She attended St Catherine's Anglican school in Waverley, Sydney, and won the medal for design in the Senior Public Examinations. She also studied art with Antonio Dattilo Rubbo and Albert Henry Fullwood. In 1899, she sailed to England for further studies, and attended the Grosvenor Life School, Vauxhall Bridge, London,  the Royal School of Art Needlework and the Royal College of Art, where she also gained a teaching qualification. While in London, she designed a children's alphabet incorporating Australian designs, including animals which she sketched at the London Zoo. The alphabet was featured in the magazine Artist. Mort was also commissioned to illustrate a book (From Cape to Cairo, by Sarah Bibbie, 1903). She was offered a teaching position at the Royal Drawing Society of London, and designed textiles with designs of Australian flora for Liberty & Co. By 1906, Mort had returned to Australia with Nora Kate Weston, another Australian who had travelled to London to study, in her case at the School of Art Wood-Carving, South Kensington.

1906-1914 (or 1919?)
The first years after Mort's return to Australia were very productive, and she became well known to Australian women. In May 1907, the Sydney Mail newspaper began a series called "Australian Women: Their Homes and Their Work", with the first article by Eirene Mort. It presented designs for a drawing-room portiere, featuring waratahs, and a hall dado featuring black swans. Mort contributed six more articles, with additional designs for the hall and drawing room, as well for the dining room, bedroom, smoking room and nursery. Mort pointed out that Australia "possesses a wealth of individuality in plant and animal forms suitable for decoration ... and ... peculiarly adaptable for ornamental purposes." She encouraged those creating ornamental pieces for the home to think beyond designs originating in Europe, and offered designs incorporating banksias, flannel flowers, eucalyptus flowers, leaves and gumnuts, Sturt's desert peas, kookaburras, spoonbills, parrots, flying foxes, koalas, kangaroos and other Australian flora and fauna. Mort gave suggestions on how her black and white drawings could be reproduced and adapted for stencilling, embroidery, appliqué, wood carving, lead lighting, pyrography, etc.

For the first Australian Exhibition of Women's Work held in Melbourne in 1907, Mort designed a 3.8m² carpet to be presented to the patroness of the exhibition, Lady Northcote, the wife of the Governor-General. The "Waratah Carpet", as it was known, was considered by some to be "[t]he star of the whole show". Mort also exhibited many designs in every class of the applied arts, illustration and watercolour sections. One entry was her children's alphabet, which was favourably noticed in reviews. The Sydney Mail thought that it "should be used wherever the ABC is taught in New South Wales", while (a Melbourne paper?) mentioned her "clever" alphabet, as well as "stencilled nursery curtains, 'Cocks and Hens' and 'Kangaroos'.

Together with Weston, Mort opened a studio in Sydney,  where Mort taught art and Weston taught wood-carving, carpentry and leather work. They offered an interior decorating service, with a strong focus on Australian design elements. Mort also took a teaching position at The Shirley, a girls' school in the Sydney suburb of Edgecliff.

In 1906, Mort had started the Australian Guild of Handicraft, which held an Australian Applied Art Exhibition at The Shirley in December 1906. Works by six women were shown: Mort, Dorothea Adams, Beatrice Pearson, M.C. Cracknell, Dagmar Ross and Sarah Yeomans. Another organisation, the Arts and Crafts Society of NSW, had formed in 1906, and Mort joined it in 1907; her Guild did not function after 1906. In 1915, Mort produced the Arts and Crafts Society emblem, with a waratah motif. The Society held monthly one-day shows and longer yearly exhibitions; a reviewer of the first monthly show commented, "Eirene Mort's designs generally get out of the ruck, and a flight of black swans across a cloudless sky of red leather made a Blotter of Beauty." At the Arts and Crafts Society's Third Annual Exhibition in 1910, works by Mort (including a tablecloth with a stencilled and embroidered waratah design), were purchased for the collections of the Art Gallery of NSW (then the National Art Gallery), and the Technological Museum (later incorporated into the Powerhouse Museum).

In March 1909, Mort held her first solo exhibition at her studio in Angel Place, Sydney. She showed "hundreds of designs ... all based on some Australian motif", worked in wood, metal, stencilling and embroidery. One design particularly noted was of fauns with the hind legs and tails of kangaroos dancing among tea-trees.

Mort has been described as having a "lifelong interest in black-and-white illustration", of which the children's alphabet was one example. She also designed menu cards, including some in 1906 for the Federal Government House, (at that period in Sydney).

Illustrated first volume of Sulman's Wild Flowers in 1912, and the second in 1913 after a brief trip to Europe Illustration by Eirene Mort from Florence Sulman, A Popular Guide to the Wildflowers of N.S.W. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1913-1914.

and produced bookplates over many years. Two "bold and simple .. designs" were included in bookplate collector John Lane Mullins' 1905 article, 'Some Australian Book Plates'.

Did occupational therapy work with returned soldiers in 1916

1920-1939
Principal of the Women Painters' School 1920-1923, introduced more craft-oriented classes August 1920 elected to the inaugural Council of the Australian Painter-Etchers Society Represented in THIRD INTERNATIONAL PRINT MAKERS' EXHIBITION in Los Angeles, 21 March - 16 April 1922 as member of Painter-Etchers Society - "Eirene Mort showed great promise". Exhibited often until 1939, mostly etchings and pencil sketches continued to work as a designer and illustrator

Post World War Two
In 1947 again taught handicrafts in repatriation hospitals with Weston Over the following years, some book illustration in 1966, commended for her designs in the Australian decimal currency competition Died 1 December 1977 at Bowral her design work included in an exhibition at the AGNSW in 1978

Also see Mort, Margaret. "Eirene Mort, a biographical memoir", in Eirene Mort, Old Canberra: A Sketchbook of the 1920s. Canberra: NLA, 1987. (in Woollacott biblio)

See exhibition catalogue, Beyond the Picket Fence: Australian Women's Art in the National Library's Collections, 1995 (No illustrations of her work. Listed are a sketch/etching, a bookplate and a gift card. Better probably to have an external link to her work in the NLA.)

"Amongst her creative legacy are her bookplates from the 1920s which highlight her knowledge of heraldry and skills in etching, woodcuts and pen-drawing, her sketches and etchings of Canberra in the 1920s, her Australian flora and fauna illustrations for several children’s books and her annotated sketchbooks that she began compiling in her ninetieth year featuring her sketch work over the years. These illustrations, along with her proficiency in a wide range of craftwork disciplines are a testament to her skilled craftsmanship and significant contribution to the development of Australian decorative arts and design in the early 20th century."

Eirene Mort on Design & Art Australia Online: Eirene Mort b. 1879 Designer, Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator), Designer (Textile Artist / Fashion Designer)

'Artist, teacher Eirene Mort moved to Mittagong in 1937' in Southern Highland News

'Eirene Mort: Artisan and 'New Woman' ' By Louise Maher on Mornings, ABC Radio (also on CMAG website, plus exhibition brochure)

On Australian Prints and Printmaking

The Tale of Tiddley Winks by Mary Gilmore, 1916, cover illustrated by Eirene Mort. 

"Eirene Mort was an illustrator, designer, etcher and embroiderer" "She participated in the New South Wales display in The Australian Exhibition of Women's Work and also designed the cover and layout of its review in the Sydney Mail. In the 1920s, many of the multi-talented designers of the various arts and crafts societies became more keenly interested in etching, designing calendars, Christmas cards, book plates and exploring woodblock printing as well as linocuts. Eirene Mort concentrated much of her efforts in this direction, becoming a founding member of the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society in 1920."

Died   1 December 1977    Bowral, New South Wales, Australia

Legacy
"Pieces by Craft At Work participants include glass vases, bowls, plates and trays by Miki Kubo, Jim Randall and Emma Varga of the Alchemy Design Group, many of which feature designs by Eirene Mort. ..... (Illustrated: Oval mirror engraved with Eirene Mort design, by Greg and Wendy Flack of Artisan Studios, Gippsland)"

I have this magazine: 'Drawing on the Past' Handmade May/ June 1996 Vol 12 no 3, pp 56-59, 104-106. These magnificent cross-stitch wildflowers were designed by Alison Snepp from artist and illustrator Eirene Mort's exquisite botanical illustrations for Wildflowers of New South Wales (1926) by Florence Sulman. Eirene Mort (1879-1977) was an influential designer who strongly advocated the use of Australian flora and fauna designs in all the decorative arts. .... to capture the delicacy of the original drawings ... 3 designs: Waratah, Sturt's Desert Pea, Grevilleas Red Spider Flower and Grey Spider Flower - all drawn between 1912 and 1918. (Those 3 designs shown in The Gentle Arts, p34, with caption including the info "Hand coloured by Marion Carment, aged 12." "Eirene Mort was a prominent designer who strongly influenced taste in the early 20th century. She advocated Australian flora and fauna designs in all the decorative arts." I have a book with this design in it: Honeyeaters and banksia c.1907 "Eirene Mort (1879-1977) was undoubtedly one of the most talented and influential designers of her time"