Landells Studio Pottery (Australia),

Flora Annie Margaret Landells (nee Le Cornu) (1888-1981), painter and potter, was born in 1888 in North Adelaide. The family moved to Guildford, Western Australia, in 1896. In 1903 Flora Landells began studies at the Perth Technical School, under J. W. R. Linton. She was an outstanding student, achieving first-class passes and securing scholarships. A member of the Western Australian Society of Arts from 1904, she exhibited regularly to 1914, winning the open competition and the (Deborah) Hackett prize for drawing in 1906. Examples of her work were included in the Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work (1907) and the Franco-British Exhibition at Wembley, London (1908). She taught art at Methodist Ladies’ College (1908-48) and at Midland Junction Technical School (1909-30). She also took up china painting, using lustres and featuring geometric patterns or stylised swirling forms.

Flora and her husband Reg Landells were also more... pioneering potters in Western Australia, establishing the Landells Studio Pottery about 1929. Her pottery comprised hand-built forms and carving. During World War II, to relieve the shortage of imported ceramic wares, the pottery produced a mass-market range for sale at Harris, Scarfe & Sandovers Ltd. In 1947 Flora held solo exhibitions at the (Sir) Claude Hotchin and Newspaper House art galleries. After the war her pottery featured wheel-thrown forms with Chinese glazes, or was inspired by native vegetation.

A painter in oils and watercolours, Flora taught art at Methodist Ladies’ College (1908-48) and at Midland Junction Technical School (1909-30). She also took up china painting, using lustres and featuring geometric patterns or stylised swirling forms. Her teachers were probably the sisters Helen and May Creeth, who fired her work until she imported a kiln about 1920. On 20 December 1913 at the Guildford Methodist Church she married Reginald Burns Landells, a pharmacist. The couple lived at Maylands, where in 1925 Mrs Landells set up a school of art. Her students included Marina Shaw, Amy Harvey, Jean Darbyshire and Rolf Harris. From 1927 she held a number of solo exhibitions at which she showed drawings, paintings, china painting and pottery.

Flora Landells died in 1981. Her work is represented in the Art Gallery of Western Australia. less...