Gwyn Hanssen Pigott’s early pots, big jugs and platters for example, showed her abilities as a consummate thrower of domestic forms enlivened by deep glazing. These pieces had a weight and feel that combined a very modern eye with an innate generosity, one that echoed the pots of her teachers; Ivan McMeekin in Australia and Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew and Ray Finch in England. By the 1980s she was concentrating on porcelain, making bottles and bowls in carefully staged sculptural groupings, increasingly ambitious in size.

The work showed her interest not only in an interplay of different forms and glaze colours but in effects of light, giving it an ethereal presence. But its polish and technical control have led some to prefer the strength and individuality of her earlier pieces. After periods in London and France, Gwyn returned to Australia in the early 1970s, her last studio being in Netherdale, Queensland.

David Whiting