Doris Tutill

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1916, d.2010

Fuchsia Design

  • c. 1932
  • Gouache on paper
  • Gift of the artist, 2008
  • 312 x 349mm
  • 2008/002

Following a widely adopted approach that had emerged at the South Kensington School of Art under Christopher Dresser, Canterbury College School of Art students like Doris Tutill were encouraged to study plant forms and develop designs suitable for decorative purposes. As she later recalled, “The teachers would go and bring great baskets of things from the Botanical Gardens, and they would pick things out for us to draw – or we would pick some out ourselves ... And we studied the principles of design, and studied the principles of growth – how it all adhered to certain patterns and principles.”

(The Moon and the Manor House, 12 November 2021 – 1 May 2022)

Exhibition History