potter, was an active exhibiting member of the Society of Arts and Crafts of NSW c.1920-1930. At the 1929 annual exhibition Vi Eyre exhibited 'her famous blue pottery’ (see also Ada Newman ) done in her own kiln that was installed in her Coogee home/studio 'last year’. The Sun (24 October 1929) included a photo of Eyre with her gas kiln (which had cost £100 to land from England) and noted that it had previously been used by a former pupil, Mrs William Arnott of Wahroonga, who gave it to Mrs Eyre before she left for England two years ago.
“Mrs. Eyre is a born experimenter. She was the first to introduce into Sydney inlay designs through the use of two or three different clays. These she gets from all over the world. South African, New Zealand and Sydney clays are woven into some of her pieces at this display.”
They included a vase with locusts and a vase with a large lizard, 'a unique wall lamp on cubist lines in an uncommon shade of blue, fronted with a shade of frosted glass’ (unattrib. press cutting), a plate and bowl with a new zinc glaze, and a photograph of overmantel tiles in a 'Roman frieze’ design ( SMH 22 October 1929) – actually deriving from the Elgin marbles. The decoration was of natural coloured clays (some from Mount Tambourine, Qld, others imported from India and South Africa) worked on blues. The design of one of her mugs was taken from the aboriginal motifs of shark’s teeth, boomerang and tree trunk – 'these three being the pet symbols of the abo.’ (unidentified cutting) – with a pale yellow ground, the teeth moulded in brighter tones and boomerang and tree trunks in contrasting shades of browns (photograph). Eyre’s Frog Vase 1929, earthenware 23.2 cm high (Art Gallery of New South Wales) was another 'striking exhibit’ in the show; 'They were lifted from her pond at Coogee and deposited under a glass cover during the modelling process.’
Vi Eyre was a most prolific potter. At the 1931 annual exhibition she showed about 50 pots. When the Society assembled a sesquicentenary exhibition of craftwork to be shown in the 50th anniversary exhibition of the English Society of Arts and Crafts at Burlington House, London, in November 1938, many items with 'a definite Australian character’ were chosen, including at least one of Vi Eyre’s combined sharks teeth and boomerang beer mugs. The other exhibitors included: Mrs A.J. Brown, M.E. Parsons {?}, Grace Seccombe , E. M. Spring, Misses Rosalie Wilson, Dorothy Wager , P.F. Thompson, Ethel Stephens , Ethleen Palmer , Olive Nock , Ada Newman , Eirene Mort , Nell McCredie, Joan Mackenzie , Violet Mace , Myrtle Innes , Nell Holden , Mildred Creed , Marjorie Boyd, Jessica Booth, D. Bamberger and Ethel Atkinson ( SMH 2 August 1938).
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
