Gwyn Hanssen Pigott
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
“I started looking more and more at Morandi’s work, but because of the pots I was making at the time, I didn’t connect Morandi’s still life paintings with my own work. They were just stored at the back of my mind”.
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Gwyn continued to exhibit internationally until her death, with exhibitions since 2000 including Galerie Besson, London; Erskine, Hall & Coe, London; Tate St Ives, UK; Garth Clark, New York; The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh; Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney; Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane; Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne and a major retrospective Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: a survey, National Gallery of Victoria.
Public collections include the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. A potters film won the best contemporary film award at the Ateliers d’art de France international film festival at Montpellier in 2010. This wonderful film about Gwyn is available in the documentary section of this website.
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott was a central figure in the history of contemporary ceramics in the 20th century and she retained a remarkable presence in the 21st century ceramic movement.
I started making the still life groups during a visit to Paris. I came across the huge 1972 retrospective exhibition of the artist Giorgio Morandi, who at that time I didn’t know anything about. He was a great artist of both landscape and still life. I just loved his work, I had never come across anything like this that I responded to so much. His still life groups were so very quiet, very intense, very pulled back.
In a ccRADIO sound story below, Gwyn and Peter Hylands discuss the art of wood firing.
I started making the still life groups during a visit to Paris. I came across the huge 1972 retrospective exhibition of the artist Giorgio Morandi, who at that time I didn’t know anything about. He was a great artist of both landscape and still life. I just loved his work, I had never come across anything like this that I responded to so much. His still life groups were so very quiet, very intense, very pulled back.
In a ccRADIO sound story below, Gwyn and Peter Hylands discuss the art of wood firing.
a potters film
In 2008 and in Queensland, Australia, Creative cowboy films made a series of films with Gwyn. These films included a potters film which won the best contemporary art film award in Montpellier, France in 2010. The other five films in the series were about the processes of making as Gwyn demonstrated each stage of her complex and refined making processes. All these films can be viewed in the documentaries section.
An international life
The fact that the art of studio pottery is such an international affair is demonstrated by the career forging events that shaped Gwyn’s life. This story probably starts many centuries ago with the development of the extraordinary ceramic art of China.
The impact that Song and early Ming Chinese pots had on the young Australian, Ivan McMeekin, who was later to become a major figure in the development of Australian studio pottery, was a key influence in Gwyn Hanssen Pigott’s life.
Ivan McMeekin served in the British merchant navy in China and had become a keen and knowledgeable collector of Chinese ceramics. Following the events of 1949, Ivan, decided to become a potter and made his way to England. Here, he met the British potter Michael Cardew and joined him at his workshop at Wenford Bridge, Cornwall. Ivan returned to Australia in 1953 and it was two years later that the young Melbourne University student, Gwyn John, visited him while researching her thesis on Australian artist potters.
Immediately drawn to his work, Gwyn changed course and became apprenticed to Ivan for the next three years. Then following in his footsteps she travelled to England to further her potting experience and there she met and worked with Ray Finch, Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew.
While in the UK, Gwyn had the opportunity to develop working relationships and friendships with some of the world’s most significant potters, who also included Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie, Dame Lucie Rie, Ray Finch, Alan Caiger-Smith and Mick Casson.
Gwyn went on to establish studios in London and Central France before returning to Australia in 1973. Gwyn Hanssen Pigott eventually made her home in Queensland, Australia.
Gwyn died in London in July 2013.
The Scottish Gallery exhibition
Alison Britton writes of Gwyn’s exhibition at The Scottish Gallery (these are the very pots which Gwyn was making during the filming of a potters film):
“This new work presents trails and many smaller groups, trios of bowls, the transient and the still. There is less movement, more calm reflection; perhaps a sense of the pots facing an audience. The trails include more pauses, breaks in the rhythm, moments of silence. Titles such as Fade, Pause, and Slow evoke this quieter mood. For me Yellow Parade shows the essence of her beautiful work with its three cups and their lively handles, the shallowest of all bowls on stage left, and an interloper, a grey bowl, slightly off centre in the yellow array”.
Peter Hylands says:
“In making a potters film over the last few months we have spent a great deal of time with Gwyn”. I asked her about the groupings of pots.
Peter Hylands: When did you start making the still life groups?
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: During a visit to Paris I came across the huge 1972 retrospective exhibition of the artist Giorgio Morandi, who at that time I didn’t know anything about.
One of the things that I loved about Morandi’s paintings were the spaces in between the shapes and how these spaces were used; but mainly I loved his intense gaze, the way he could look at and grasp the essence of the objects he described.
Almost 20 years later I met the wood-firing potter, Heja Chong, who lived just outside of Melbourne.
Heja had built a Japanese Noboragama kiln and she invited me to come and use it. Several times I fired with her, at first I put in the shapes of pots that I would normally make but it seemed very obvious from the first unpacking that this was ridiculous as they were not the right kind of shapes for that firing method where glaze was redundant.
I started thinking about bottles and of course thought of Morandi. Until then I had never made bottles. For this kiln I started making new shapes. The very first group that I called still life came out of Heja's kiln. Very simple ashed shapes, with telling spaces between them.
Peter Hylands: I am thinking about surface and light, there is a kind of language, a kind of sound to your work?
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: Now that I have been working a lot with porcelains that are more and more translucent, the light is very important. Some groups I actually call Still life for windows, suggesting where they could be placed. It’s lovely, for example, when you have a still life like Exodus, which is about vulnerability and ordinariness.
"The way the pots transform in the light is something very special for me, because this reflects what we are as human beings, ordinary but with the possibility of joy".
a potters film
In 2008 and in Queensland, Australia, Creative cowboy films made a series of films with Gwyn. These films included a potters film which won the best contemporary art film award in Montpellier, France in 2010. The other five films in the series were about the processes of making as Gwyn demonstrated each stage of her complex and refined making processes. All these films can be viewed in the documentaries section.
An international life
The fact that the art of studio pottery is such an international affair is demonstrated by the career forging events that shaped Gwyn’s life. This story probably starts many centuries ago with the development of the extraordinary ceramic art of China.
The impact that Song and early Ming Chinese pots had on the young Australian, Ivan McMeekin, who was later to become a major figure in the development of Australian studio pottery, was a key influence in Gwyn Hanssen Pigott’s life.
Ivan McMeekin served in the British merchant navy in China and had become a keen and knowledgeable collector of Chinese ceramics. Following the events of 1949, Ivan, decided to become a potter and made his way to England. Here, he met the British potter Michael Cardew and joined him at his workshop at Wenford Bridge, Cornwall. Ivan returned to Australia in 1953 and it was two years later that the young Melbourne University student, Gwyn John, visited him while researching her thesis on Australian artist potters.
Immediately drawn to his work, Gwyn changed course and became apprenticed to Ivan for the next three years. Then following in his footsteps she travelled to England to further her potting experience and there she met and worked with Ray Finch, Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew.
While in the UK, Gwyn had the opportunity to develop working relationships and friendships with some of the world’s most significant potters, who also included Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie, Dame Lucie Rie, Ray Finch, Alan Caiger-Smith and Mick Casson.
Gwyn went on to establish studios in London and Central France before returning to Australia in 1973. Gwyn Hanssen Pigott eventually made her home in Queensland, Australia.
Gwyn died in London in July 2013.
The Scottish Gallery exhibition
Alison Britton writes of Gwyn’s exhibition at The Scottish Gallery (these are the very pots which Gwyn was making during the filming of a potters film):
“This new work presents trails and many smaller groups, trios of bowls, the transient and the still. There is less movement, more calm reflection; perhaps a sense of the pots facing an audience. The trails include more pauses, breaks in the rhythm, moments of silence. Titles such as Fade, Pause, and Slow evoke this quieter mood. For me Yellow Parade shows the essence of her beautiful work with its three cups and their lively handles, the shallowest of all bowls on stage left, and an interloper, a grey bowl, slightly off centre in the yellow array”.
Peter Hylands says:
“In making a potters film over the last few months we have spent a great deal of time with Gwyn”. I asked her about the groupings of pots.
Peter Hylands: When did you start making the still life groups?
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: During a visit to Paris I came across the huge 1972 retrospective exhibition of the artist Giorgio Morandi, who at that time I didn’t know anything about.
One of the things that I loved about Morandi’s paintings were the spaces in between the shapes and how these spaces were used; but mainly I loved his intense gaze, the way he could look at and grasp the essence of the objects he described.
Almost 20 years later I met the wood-firing potter, Heja Chong, who lived just outside of Melbourne.
Heja had built a Japanese Noboragama kiln and she invited me to come and use it. Several times I fired with her, at first I put in the shapes of pots that I would normally make but it seemed very obvious from the first unpacking that this was ridiculous as they were not the right kind of shapes for that firing method where glaze was redundant.
I started thinking about bottles and of course thought of Morandi. Until then I had never made bottles. For this kiln I started making new shapes. The very first group that I called still life came out of Heja's kiln. Very simple ashed shapes, with telling spaces between them.
Peter Hylands: I am thinking about surface and light, there is a kind of language, a kind of sound to your work?
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: Now that I have been working a lot with porcelains that are more and more translucent, the light is very important. Some groups I actually call Still life for windows, suggesting where they could be placed. It’s lovely, for example, when you have a still life like Exodus, which is about vulnerability and ordinariness.
"The way the pots transform in the light is something very special for me, because this reflects what we are as human beings, ordinary but with the possibility of joy".
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Gwyn continued to exhibit internationally until her death, with exhibitions since 2000 including Galerie Besson, London; Erskine, Hall & Coe, London; Tate St Ives, UK; Garth Clark, New York; The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh; Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney; Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane; Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne and a major retrospective Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: a survey, National Gallery of Victoria.
Public collections include the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. A potters film won the best contemporary film award at the Ateliers d’art de France international film festival at Montpellier in 2010. This wonderful film about Gwyn is available in the documentary section of this website.