Costume design by Motley for Miss Tina and Mrs Prest in Michael Redgrave's stage adaptation of Henry James's novel The Aspern Papers, Queen's Theatre, 1959.

The design team Motley - sisters Margaret (1904-2000) and Sophia Harris (1900-1966) and their friend Elizabeth Montgomery (1902-1993) - had their first success in 1932 when they created the sets and costumes for Romeo and Juliet, directed by John Gielgud for the Oxford University Dramatic Society. They went on to design over 300 stage productions in Britain and America, working with all the the major theatre, opera and ballet companies of the 20th century. The name Motley was always used by the Harris sisters and Montgomery and no one took credit for the individual designs. In 1940 Elizabeth Montgomery and Margaret Harris went to work in New York, where Montgomery stayed and married, becoming a Broadway costume designer under the Motley name. Harris returned to Britain, and continued to design as Motley, sometimes in partnership with her sister and sometimes working alone. Much of the later work of Motley is by Margaret Harris.

Michael Redgrave adapted and starred in the stage version of Henry James’s The Aspern Papers, which premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in London’s West End in 1959. Redgrave was praised for his adaptation (‘as satisfying as anything to be seen on the London stage for a long time’, said Alan Pryce-Jones in the Observer of 16 August 1959), and for his performance as the literary critic who ingratiates himself with an elderly lady and her niece in order to gain access to the love-letters of a 19th century poet, the Aspern Papers of the title. All the performances were well received, particularly those of Flora Robson as the niece, Miss Tina, and Pauline Jameson as one of the supporting characters, Mrs Prest.