Design for Life: Grant and Mary Featherston
⬤ Heide Museum of Modern Art 30 Jun - 7 Oct 2018
Exhibitions of modern Australian furniture and design are enjoying a resurgence in recent years. There was the NGV's Mid-Century Modern: Australian Furniture Design in 2014, and Take a Seat: Australian Modernist Seating at the Penrith Regional Gallery in the same year, followed by a focus on overlooked émigré designers in The Moderns: European designers in Sydney, at the Museum of Sydney in 2017, and an exhibition of Meadmore furniture opens shortly at the Ian Potter Museum of Art. Permanent hangs of Australian collections in state galleries invariably incorporate at very least a Schulim Krimper sideboard or Fred Ward desk. Modern design is to the fore of contemporary taste, as reflected not only in the pages of glossy architecture magazines but also in the crop of mid-century modern furniture stores mushrooming across the country and in the production of high-end replicas of iconic works – including a range of Featherston chairs launched spectacularly at ACCA in 2016. Heide's present survey show, Design for Life: Grant and Mary Featherston, is therefore clearly of the moment.
