Dorothy Burnett graduated from the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts with a diploma in 1930, took post graduate studies at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, and, later studied with the outstanding artists and bookbinders, Herbert and Peter Fahey, in their private studio in San Francisco. Returning from California, she set up her own studio “three flights up” over the old Dunsmuir Street Imperial Bank Building with a friend, the potter, Frances Gatewood. Subsequently she worked out of her family home on Angus Drive, accepting special orders for the fine binding of family bibles, commemorative books, albums, old volumes and first editions – such books were cherished, loved and honoured by their owners.

Miss Burnett’s work has been shown many times. Among the earliest exhibitions, dating back to the 1930’s, were those annual displays put on by the Graduates’ Association of the Vancouver School of Art. She was also included in “20th Century Bookbinding,” held at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 1982.