Ceramics in the collection

CERAMICS IN THE COLLECTION

Errol Barnes (1941 -)

Vase, porcelain

Donated by Year 12 cohort, 1990

Errol Barnes started working full time as a potter in 1965 with an art school background and wide experience in art and ceramics teaching. He established the Lyrebird Ridge Pottery at Springbrook, QLD, in 1976.

Gordon Bennett. (1955-2014)

Gnome 2008

Plaster and Acrylic

Gordon Bennett remains one of Australia’s most significant postmodern artists. Throughout his practice, he worked in a wide range of media including painting, drawing, printmaking, video, performance, installation and pottery. His “Gnome” is a satirical take on black identity, referencing black golliwog dolls of earlier times.

Sandra Black. (1950 -)

Ceramic Forms

Ceramic artist Sandra Black lives and works in Fremantle, WA.

Her ceramic vessels are light, delicate, translucent and resemble lace. Each porcelain form features a cut-out design, where negative space and areas of high relief create the decoration.

Greg Daly. (1954 -)

Platter, 1992

Greg Daly is an internationally acclaimed ceramic artist specialising in rich glaze effects. His work is held in over 85 national and international art gallery and museum collections, including those of the National Gallery of Australia and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Steve Davies (1964-)

Flamingo Folly, 1992

Steve Davies was born in Horsham, Victoria. He started exhibiting soon after obtaining a Diploma in Applied Arts from Charles Sturt University in 1984 and, since then, has participated in a wide range of professional activities in Australia and overseas, including residencies, workshop facilitation and management and lecturing in the TAFE system. In 2008, he established the Studio 9 Artspace in Uki in NSW's Tweed Valley. He now lives and works near Byron Bay. In his ceramics practice, he makes highly decorated and colourful domestic ware and one-off pieces signed with an incised 'S. Davies'.

Pippin Drysdale (1943-)

Ceramic Bowl, 1996

Pippin Drysdale is an Australian ceramic artist and art teacher, working out of her studio in Freemantle, WA. She is regarded as the foremost interpreter of the Australian landscape in the field of ceramics. Her works are known for their intensity of colour and linear markings that interpret the artist's relationship with the Australian landscape. Pippin’s work is held in public and private collections in Australia and overseas.

Carol Forster (1947-)

Footprints on the beach series

White Clay.

Donated by Lend Lease Construction.

Carol Forster works out of her studio in Buderim on The Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Her work often reflects her love of the natural environment and our need to preserve it. She designed her Footprints series to reflect the white sandy beaches in Australia. These pieces are made in a fine white clay using both hand building and wheel techniques. She has won many awards and her work is held in public and private collections.

Gillian Grigg. (1933-1992)

Musical Instrument

Gillian-Grigg trained in ceramics at the Royal College of art, London, then worked as a ceramic designer for the Potteries in Stoke before coming to Australia in 1959. Over the years, she taught at various art colleges and universities before moving to Brisbane in 1986. During her time in NSW, she was active in the Potters' Society of Australia. She was an avid wood-firer, had a strong interest in geology, and excelled in surface decoration.

Sandra Lockwood (1953-)

Tall pot with handles, ceramic

Donated by the Mothers Group, 2000

Sandra Lockwood was born in London England, but trained and gained her qualifications in Australia. In 1980, she established Balmoral Pottery, NSW, specialising in wood firing and salt glazing. She has taught at various TAFE colleges, ANU and is currently a lecturer at the National Art School, East Sydney. She makes both tableware and sculptural work, in her studio in the Southern Highlands, surrounded by nature.

Harry Memmott. (1921-1991)

Jug

Donated by Sally Sutton (Muller, 1993)

Harry Memmott trained as a painter, studying art at the Brisbane Technical College, and completing a rehabilitation art course at the East Sydney Technical College after the war. He returned home in 1950 and set up a business making silk screen prints and picture frames. Memmott learnt to make pots under the guidance of Merv Feeney. In the late 1950s, he began to make and teach studio pottery. In the late 1960s, he visited Japan, and soon afterwards, moved to the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria, to take up a position at the Prahran Technical College.

Milton Moon (1926-2019)

Ceramic platter

From the Wilpena series, 1991.

Milton Moon was an Australian potter and a pioneer of the modernist approach to ceramics in the post-war period. In the mid-1950s Moon became interested in ceramics, learning the techniques of wheel-throwing earthenware. From the late 1960s began to explore the use of gas-fired kilns. This enabled the higher-firing temperatures required to produce stronger stoneware and experimentation with glazes. Moon became Senior Instructor in Pottery at the Central Technical College in Brisbane and after moving to Adelaide in 1969, he was appointed the Head of Ceramics at the South Australian School of Art.

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott OAM. (1935–2013)

Porcelain vessels suite

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott was recognized as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. Hanssen Pigott created a new language for ceramics through her famous still-life groupings of pots, some extended into larger assemblies of pieces: bowls, bottles, beakers, jugs and cups displayed in carefully orchestrated arrangements.

Kathleen Shillam OAM (1916-2002)

Alumna 1933

Bilby, bronze.

Donated by the Old Girls Association

Kathleen Shillam was an acclaimed Brisbane-based sculptor.

The daughter of an artist herself, and better known simply as Kath, Kath Shillam (nee O’Neill) arrived in Australia with her family in 1927. In 1932 Kath left Brisbane Girls Grammar to study art briefly at the Brisbane Technical College. A sculptor, known for her work in bronze, she studied in Florence, Italy, and at the Royal College of Art, London. On 26 January 1986, she and her husband Leonard were appointed Members of the Order of Australia

The artist’s work is represented in several state collections

Hiroe Swen (1934-)

Ceramic vessel

Donated from the estate of Marjorie Lamb (Alumna 1920)

Hiroe Swen born in Kyoto, Japan, began studying ceramics at the Kyoto Crafts Institute in 1957, having already practised as a successful textile artist.

By 1962 she had established her own studio in Kyoto.

Hiroe met Cornel Swen in Kyoto in 1966 and after their marriage they moved to Australia in 1968. In 1970, the Swens moved to live in the hills called Bimbimbi, on the outskirts of Queanbeyan, near Canberra. Hiroe Swen exhibited regularly in her own gallery, the Pastoral Gallery, as well as across Australia and in Japan. In 2016 she was awarded The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays by the Government of Japan, recognising her significant achievements in ceramics as an artist, and as an educator for her contribution to the promotion of Japanese culture, and her promotion of mutual understanding between Japan and Australia.

Peter Travis OAM (1929-2016)

Ceramic sphere, 1965

Peter Travis practiced as an industrial designer, ceramicist, kite-maker, swimwear designer, colour consultant and teacher. (He was invited to work for Speedo in the 1960s and designed the men’s swimsuit that became Speedo's most famous design and an icon of Australia – the speedo. The costume was controversial at the time and is now fondly referred to as the 'budgie smuggler'.) Travis was one of the first contemporary Australian potters to break away from the wheel and to create hand-built organic sculptural works. This ceramic sphere, purchased in 1996, fired in pink and grey glaze and handmade, is made up of interwoven loops of clay making a ball. He exhibited nationally and internationally, and his work is represented in many major Australian and international collections. In 2008 Travis was made Member of the Order of Australia for his outstanding contribution to the visual arts, crafts, design, and art education.

Carol Watkins (1950-)

Saggar fired Vase, 2020

Carol Watkins is a specialist in alternative firings: Raku, Naked Raku and Saggar. She is excited by the unpredictability of working with atmospheric effects, playing with oxides and making her own glazes. Experimentation is the name of the game. The saggar container can be a clay container, a cardboard box wrapped in clay, a tin or aluminium foil and the piece is surrounded by combustibles and other items such as sticks, timber, sawdust – any number of items. The combustibles eventually catch fire and the process starts with the heat being turned off between 700 and 800 degrees. The pots are generally burnished and as there is no glaze, the outsides are usually smooth and matt

Kevin White

Teapot, Japanese style

Kevin White was born in Reading, England, and is an internationally renowned ceramic artist educated in England and Japan. His focus is on interpreting the porcelain traditions of Japan and the Japonisme seen in British ceramics of the 19th century. In 1978 he was awarded a prestigious Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho) scholarship for post-graduate research in Ceramics, in Japan, studying under the late Professor Yutaka Kondo at Kyoto City University of Fine Art. He then worked for three years in the Kyoto studio of Mr Satoshi Sato, a member of the ‘Sodeisha’ group of contemporary ceramic artists. In 1985 he completed his Master of Arts at the Royal College of Art, London. He is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Art, RMIT University.

Unknown

Produced in Germany

Vase with depiction of Brisbane Girls Grammar School