Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/violet-mace

Birth Place

Swansea, Tas., Australia

Biography

potter, was born in Swansea, Tasmania. Taught pottery by her cousin Maude Poynter , Violet assisted Poynter in her Ratho studio at Bothwell in the 1920s. Both women exhibited pottery with the Arts and Crafts Society of Tasmania and in a joint exhibition at the Hobart Town Hall in 1924. Violet was also one of the few interstate members of the Arts and Crafts Society of NSW. From these exhibitions her work found its way into the collections of the Technological Museum (now Powerhouse Museum) and Art Gallery of NSW, institutions that regularly purchased works from the Society’s exhibitions in the 1920s and ’30s. Mace’s early work was influenced by that of her cousin, teacher and, for twenty years or so, working partner Maude Poynter , although she seems always to have had a stronger grasp of form than Poynter and to have relied less on painted pictorial decoration. Nevertheless, Poynter’s high reputation in Tasmania, especially as a teacher, has tended to overshadow Mace’s achievements. Mace left to study at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London at some time in the late 1920s. It is said that she also visited Bernard Leach in his pottery at St Ives, but Leach appears to have had little influence on her work. On the other hand, a fine, simple and strongly formed squat vase, which was probably made soon after her return to Tasmania, demonstrates that she learned a great deal at the Camberwell School of Arts. It is one of several similar small vases she made at this time which rely for their impact purely on form and colour. The colours are unusually strong for the period and the technical sophistication of the glazes belies the primitive nature of the equipment Mace was using at Ratho, Maude Poynter’s pottery at Bothwell, Tasmania, where she was again working. It has to be remembered that potters in these early days had to rely entirely on their own resources. They had to teach themselves by a process of trial and error, dig their own clays, make their own glazes and build their own kilns. The technical difficulties involved in making work such as this were daunting. So the technical control evident in this vase is remarkable indeed. Although she appears not to have been especially prolific Violet Mace was certainly one of the most interesting Arts and Crafts exhibitors in the years before World War II. She made small domestic earthenware pots fired in the Ratho wood-burning kiln. Until about 1937 most had painted and incised underglaze decoration reminiscent of Poynter’s work, but her late work using plain and mottled glazes is simpler in form and includes stylised plant and insect motifs and geometric designs drawn from Aboriginal art. When Poynter left to live in Hobart in 1935, Mace took over the studio and worked there until it burnt down in the early 1940s. Then she gave up pottery and moved to Hobart. Later she lived in Victoria and worked as a housekeeper, afterwards moving to Western Australia to care for her sister. Finally she retired to Hobart, where she died. Mace exhibited annually with the Arts and Crafts Society of NSW from 1927 to 1942. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences purchased her work from the exhibitions in 1928 and 1929 and the Art Gallery of NSW acquired examples in 1927 and 1929. At the Society’s 1931 exhibition she showed 20 bowls with Australian themes: Aboriginal, lyrebird, kangaroo, berries, lizard, mantis. In 1934 she visited Central Australia and collected Aboriginal drawings and artefacts, later presented to the South Australian Museum, which included a 1934 sketchbook by Albert Namatjira and children’s pencil drawings done in 1934, e.g. camels by Malarana, aged 13, a house and date palms at Hermannsburg by Ferdinand and men riding horses (one being thrown) by Gordon Abbott, aged 11. Her collection also includes a small carving of a human-headed dog by Kalboori Youngi , possibly acquired from a Queensland aunt. In the NSW Society of Arts & Crafts section at the 1941 'Australian Aboriginal Art and Its Application’ exhibition at David Jones’s Castlereagh Street Auditorium, organised by the Australian Museum, Mace showed brown bowls and trays on which were painted black natives hunting, dancing and carrying out their domestic duties. She and Grace Seccombe seem to have provided a large number of the Society’s 55 exhibits. Other exhibitors included Anne Weinholt , who won second prize in the special student competition for fabric design; another competitor was Frances Burke of Melbourne. Writers: Timms, Peter Date written: 1995 Last updated: 1992

Born

b. 1890

Summary

Known as a potter, Mace produced strong work throughout her career. Her later style shows more of a personal vision, as her early work was overshadowed by her association with Maude Poynter.

Gender

Female

Died

1968

Age at death

78