Double Act: Eirene Mort & Nora Kate Weston by Dr Sylvia Martin

Title: Double Act: Eirene Mort & Nora Kate Weston

Author: Dr Sylvia Martin

Genre: Biography

Publisher: NLA Publishing

Published: 1^st March 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 256

Price: $36.99

Synopsis: The incredible 60-year creative partnership between Eirene Mort and Nora Kate Weston is explored in intricate detail in a moving new biography from NLA Publishing.

Eirene Mort (1879-1977) and Nora Kate Weston (1880-1965) lived unconventional lives, pursuing careers in the arts in the early part of the 20^thcentury – dynamic ‘New Women’ challenging the gender conventions and societal norms of the time. To their families they were known simply as ‘The Aunts’.

Following study in London, Eirene Mort returned to Australia in 1903 and later set up a studio with Nora Kate Weston which became one of Sydney’s earliest centres for professional design and applied art. Influenced by William Morris, the pair translated the English Arts and Crafts movement into the Australian context and Mort became a founder of the Society of Arts and Crafts of New South Wales. She was a vice-president until 1935.

While Eirene is the better-known artist today, with her designs and etchings held in Australia’s leading collecting institutions, she always regarded her work with Nora as collaborative. Their intertwined lives and deep enduring relationship is explored through a queer lens, bringing Nora out of the shadows to take an equal place.

This story will deeply appeal to readers with an interest in art, design, social history and queer history. The book draws on the extensive papers, artworks, photographs and more in the National Library’s collections to paint a rich portrait of the shared lives of these important and influential women.

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Australia has always had artists, and many of them are in the galleries around the country. But how much do we know about their lives and the stories that surround them? We don’t always know their stories, especially if they are women. A recent biography by Sylvia Martin brings the lives of two of these women artists to life.

Eirene Mort and Nora Kate Weston were born in the final decades of the nineteenth century, studied art together, made art together and died in the middle of the twentieth century. They pursued lives and careers that were outside of the norm for their time.

Instead of marrying and having children, they followed artistic passions and shared lives for around 60 years. They had exceptional and interesting lives within art and other areas, like taking care of people during WWI, helping returned soldiers and working in schools like Abbotsleigh in Sydney. But what was their relationship? They lived together, and were known as the Aunts to everyone in their lives.

Their lives went beyond art, and they saw so many changes in their lives from war to depression and changing gender roles and expectations. They lived during a time when homosexuality was illegal but where if two women lived together, they were called friends or companions.

Dr Martin’s comment on this relates to how people during Eirene and Kate’s lives understood or saw their relationship. Whether they saw them as lovers, friends, or companions wasn’t clear, as this may not have been explored in the research available. There was a sense though, that whatever their relationship, however they defined it, the people who loved them accepted it.

This biography is about them as artists, about their lives and where they used their art. Where it cropped up and the styles they used and learned over their lives and how they taught. I felt that this was much more than a biography about these women. It was a social history, exploring how Eirene and Nora didn’t fit into what society expected of them, because the world around them would have shaped them just as much as their families, upbringing and studies.

It’s also about how they brought what they learned in England into an Australian context, using these styles and forms to capture Australia and its flora and fauna. Their attitudes would have been shaped by the time they grew up or the people who raised them – different things would have shaped how they saw the world and represented things. It’s not to say this is right, but it is one of those things we need to examine within an historical context and understand that people could be liberal in some ways and not so forward thinking in other ways.

Their relationship in hindsight, and by today’s definitions would likely have been known as lesbians. There is something interesting in not knowing, or the phrases we will never know, because it implies that they were lesbians and kept it hidden to ensure they weren’t judged, which is entirely possible and what I think happened. Or, people don’t want to see them that way and are trying to make themselves comfortable.

From a modern perspective, their perceived attitudes, which could be attributed to what is missing from their writing, are unacceptable. As are how they would have been treated if they were more open about the reality of their relationship. Presenting all of this through the lens of their art shows that Eirene and Kate were more than what people assumed they should be. Their talent speaks for itself, and their legacy of art and design truly comes to life in this intriguing book.

What this book does is give them a voice and highlights what the times they lived in were like for women, and how they had to maintain propriety to keep careers and reputations. Their lives are explored through their art and within the context of the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries. Think of all the societal, political and artistic changes they would have seen, and how events and movements they were involved in shaped the futures of nieces and nephews.

And the people they knew – E.H. Shepard, for one. The people they loved and lost, and how this all would have affected them. And it’s about design as well, and the influence that artists have had on some designs, and the influence that illustrators and artists have on society and how we see ourselves. Art shapes how we understand the world around us.  It’s important to understand how art has shaped Australia and how different artists have brought their own style and images to the art world from a range of backgrounds and histories.