REYNELL, GLADYS (1881-1956)

"Mixed Bunch" (1944) 
oil on board
62 x 53cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Gladys Osborne Reynell is an important, forgotten Australian Painter & Ceramicist (& collaborator of Margaret Preston). She studied medicine at the University of Adelaide but left to study art. By 1903, she joined the School of Design's Art Club in Adelaide & exhibited work at the South Australian Society of Arts. In 1907, Margaret Preston & Bessie Davidson established their own studio where they offered classes, & Reynell began studying painting there with Preston, who was to become a close friend. In 1912, Reynell & Preston travelled to Paris, where they stayed briefly before moving to London & Ireland. Their plans were derailed by the outbreak of WWI & by the death of Reynell's brother at Gallipoli in 1915. Reynell & Preston began to learn pottery at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts in London, & towards the end of the war, they began teaching pottery to soldiers. In Sept 1919, Reynell & Preston shared an exhibition of paintings & pottery at Preece's Gallery in Adelaide, which had become a center of the city's cultural life. The paintings in this exhibition were amongst the first examples of "modern art" in Australia. Establishing her own pottery studio at Reynella, she became one of Australia's earliest studio potters & the first in S.A. to take part in all stages of the production. Her pottery consisted mainly of earthenware bowls, cups, & other kitchenware decorated with designs of Australian animals and flowers. The bold, linear decorations that were her hallmark were inspired by a number of sources: by the Arts & Crafts movement, Aboriginal art, & abstract modernism. She married in 1922 & she relocated to Ballarat & started 'Osrey Pottery'. She closed the business in 1926 after her husband contracted lead poisoning from the glazes, & this drove them into poverty. In the 1930s Reynell returned briefly to painting & printmaking, sometimes exhibiting under her married name. Her works are represented in the AGNSW, NGV, AGSA & NGA!!