Bird of paradise

This is one of many photographs in the Museum collection related to Annan Fabrics – a textile design enterprise established by Anne Outlaw and Nance Mackenzie in 1941 in Mosman and known for its use of strong colours, Australian floral and faunal themes and Aboriginal motifs.

In this photograph, taken in 1947, Nance Mackenzie is showing her clients a length of fabric with a bird of paradise pattern called Strelitzia, which is a botanical name for the plant.

The Strelitzia is in the Powerhouse Museum collection and was donated together with other screen-printed textiles by Nance Mackenzie, by then Mrs Nan Kirkwood, in 1985.

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Tags: businesses, Sydney, textile design, women

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.