Gwyn HANSSEN PIGOTT

View in collection Gwyn Hanssen Pigott was born in Victoria, Australia and lived and worked in Queensland.  She studied Fine Art at the University of Melbourne and trained with Ivan McMeekin in New South Wales, who had worked with Michael Cardew in Cornwall in the early 1950s. She came to England in her early twenties and worked with Ray Finch, Bernard Leach, and Michael Cardew, before moving to La Borne France where she fired with a large wood-burning kiln. She returned to Australia in 1973, where her work became influenced by the still life and landscape paintings of Giorgio Morandi, whose retrospective exhibition she had seen in Paris in 1972. By the 1990s, she had simplified her forms and moved away from showing individual pieces towards installation work.From then she produced high-fired ash-glazed porcelain bowls and bottles which are displayed in carefully arranged groups, each with its own individual title. These serene installations reveal subtle differences in shape, shade and glaze demonstrating the harmony and balance amongst her vessels.  Her work has been highly influential on many younger ceramic artists who now choose to show work in groups or installations.

Details

• Dates: 1935-2013