Doris A. Carter

Doris Carter was a contemporary of Joyce Clissold at the Central School during the mid to late 1920s. Carter is perhaps best known for her textile designs and in particular her designs for 'Theatre'. She designed textiles for Footprints, the block-printing workshop set up in 1925 to supply printed textiles to Elspeth Ann Little's shop, Modern Textiles. As well as textile design, Carter also studied wood engraving and woodcuts under Noel Rooke and her bold and lively prints reveal her interest in decorative design. Also known as Ann Gillmore Carter, she illustrated three books: 'The Book of Tobit' (Mandrake Press 1929), 'Tales of the Little Sisters of St Francis' (Grant Richards and Humphrey Toulmin 1929) and, with other illustrators, 'Turn Again Tales' (Blackwell 1930). During the late 1920s and early 30s, she exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers and worked for various publishers.
She married William Togarmah Rees and moved to Australia in 1937, where, as Ann Rees, in 1944 she was a key figure in the formation of the Arts and Crafts Society of New South Wales Double Bay Design Studio. In the late 1940s, she taught women on isolated country properties, which led to 'The Groupers' (whose members included Esther Bayliss, Mary Caussen, Joan Law-Smith and Joan Slater.
She was also associated with Margaret Oppen who formed the Embroiderer's Guild of NSW in 1957, together they taught at the Society of Arts and Crafts School. Ann Rees was the first to be employed by the Guild to teach modern embroidery.
Author: JS