Tara McKinney Marinus: Finding Betty Joel

FoSMAG is delighted to welcome Tara McKinney Marinus to present April's illustrated talk on the designer Betty Joel. Tara is a curator and historian of art and design. She's currently working on a PhD at the University of Portsmouth in collaboration with Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery.

Betty Joel was a furniture, textile and interior designer of Scottish heritage, with factories in both Portsmouth and Kingston-Upon-Thames during the interwar period. In 1933, The London Weekly Dispatch reported that Joel was one of only six women in England earning more than £500 per week. Her work was seen in some of the most iconic buildings in 1930s London and her clients included Lord Mountbatten and Sir Winston Churchill.

Many design features found in homes today are the result of Betty's innovations and are a testament to a unique and pioneering designer. Yet, despite her prolific twenty-year enterprise, Betty Joel’s contribution to the development of…