Gwyn Hannsen Pigott

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott AM (1935–2013) was a self-described potter, whose international reputation was built on her exquisite still-life assemblages of refined, spare vessels in subtle colours and shapes. Hanssen Pigott gained her bachelor's degree in fine arts from Melbourne University and, as a student, became enchanted by the Kent collection of Chinese ceramics in the National Gallery of Victoria. Accordingly, she moved to Mittagong in 1955 to train with Ivan McMeekin, a devotee of Chinese pots, at Sturt Pottery. Not long after, she left for England, where she worked with leading potters, learning about local materials and small-scale production before establishing a studio in Portobello Road, London with her husband, Louis Hanssen, in 1960. After the end of her marriage in 1966, she travelled to Achères, France, where she set up her own studio; in 1973 she moved to Tasmania with her second husband, John Pigott, and they set up a studio there. After residencies in Adelaide and Brisbane, in 1989 she relocated to Netherdale, Queensland, and in 2002 to Ipswich. The National Gallery of Victoria mounted the retrospective Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: A Survey 1955–2005 in 2006. In her last decades she travelled and taught internationally, and held solo shows in the UK, Australia, the US, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Japan and Italy. Represented in all major Australian galleries, Hanssen Pigott died while in London for a group exhibition at the Erskine, Hall & Coe gallery in Mayfair.