Gladys Reynell's 1920s studio at Reynella turns out modernist pottery, with Aboriginal motifs, far ahead in Australia
Gladys Reynell and two examples of her 1920s work from Reynella Pottery. Reynell decorated her earthenware teapots, mugs, vases, plates, bowls and jugs, using traditional English slipware and sgraffito techniques to produce abstract patterns. The jar at left features the characteristic rich Reynella blue slip.
Gladys Reynell image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Gladys Reynell was the first potter to introduce modernist values to Australian craft at her 1920s studio pottery at Reynella, South Australia, where she did all stages of production – something not widespread until the 1950s craft revival.
Gladys Reynell grew up on the estate of her grandfather John Reynell, thought to have started South Australia’s first commercial winery, south of Adelaide. The cousin of suffragist Elizabeth Webb Nicholls, Reynell was home schooled before matriculating at Tormore House School, North Adelaide.
Reynell initially studied medicine at Adelaide University but was attracted to courses offered by the South Australian school of design. Reynell probably joined day classes in elementary and geometric studies. By 1903, she was in the school of design’s art club and exhibited work at the South Australian Society of Arts’ annual show, with painters Margaret Rose Macpherson (later Preston) and Bessie Davidson.
In 1907, Macpherson (who became a Reynell’s close friend) and Davidson opened their own studio where an exhilarated Reynell studied painting. After her father financed her European travels in 1909, Reynell joined Macpherson in a new studio and exhibited with the South Australian Society of Arts in 1911.
Reynell and Macpherson travelled in 1912 to Paris for a year before London and Ireland. Reynell exhibited with the Old Salon in Paris, with several English groups, and at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Walker Gallery, Liverpool. Their plans were hit by World War I and Reynell’s younger brother Carew being killed at Gallipoli in 1915.
Reynell’s other brother Rupert, a neurologist, valued handicrafts to rehabilitate shell-shocked soldiers. He influenced Reynell and Macpherson to learn pottery at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London, in 1916. Next year, some Kangaroo Island clay, sent by friend, excited Reynell: “I thought then that it could be the most delightful thing on earth to make pots in Australia from virgin clay”. In 1918, Reynell and Macpherson began teaching pottery to soldiers at Seale Hayne Neurological Hospital, Devon.
In 1919, with her father fatally ill, Reynell came home. In September, she and McPherson shared an exhibition at Preece’s Gallery. Reynella started her pottery studio at Reynella, the town founded by her grandfather. She exploited a dump of buff-coloured clay from McLaren Vale; built and fired her own kiln; and threw simple robust forms based on European folk pottery. She decorated them with designs inspired by Aboriginal art— probably the first potter to use this source—and modernists.
Reynell’s work anticipated influential English studio potter Bernard Leach. She espoused English arts and craft movement ideals and emulated Gottlieb Zoerner, an early South Australian potter. Reynell's closeness to Margaret Preston (Macpherson’s married name) was evident in her modernist designs.
To her family’s dismay, Reynell married her studio assistant George Osborne at St Mary's Church, Edwardstown, in 1922. In Ballarat, Victoria, they set up Osrey Pottery. Reynell produced pottery to sell at fairs and shops until 1926 when her husband contracted lead poisoning from the glazes. They moved to rural Curdievale where she resumed painting and making woodcuts.
From 1939, they were in Melbourne. In World War II, Reynell worked in the army pay corps, in the taxation office, and as a French translator. They lived in near poverty until Gladys died of cancer in 1956. Her husband scattered her ashes at Reynella.