Design and Art Australia Online

Along with her twin brother, Christine (Chris) Audrey Peckett was born in Scarborough, England on 8th April 1908. Her Methodist parents were of impecunious means and in 1911 migrated to Australia in search of greater opportunity. The family of seven settled in the Ashfield Municipality in western Sydney. When she was five, Christine became infected with poliomyelitis, and this led to a life-long weakness of her legs. After ongoing orthopaedic treatments she was fitted with leg braces and crutches to help her walk.

Despite not coming from an artistic family, Christine in her youth experimented with modeling, drawing and painting. Her endeavors were soon noticed and in the early to mid-1930s she successfully applied to study art at the East Sydney Technical School thanks to a scholarship from the Crippled Children’s Society. During her studies she studied modeling and casting, printmaking and painting. Her talent was noticed by her course supervisor, Fred Leist who in a newspaper feature praised her talent and determination (Sydney Morning Herald, 7 December 1937, p25):

From the very beginning she has shown an individuality that is given to few people. I think the tremendous handicap under which she has worked has fostered an independent spirit. She has had to fight against things, and the result is that she tackles a painting with a determination to express an individuality… I am ever so proud of her bq).

This newspaper report coincided with her ‘one man show’ at the East Sydney Technical School where she exhibited over sixty art works including, oil paintings, watercolours, poster designs, murals, etchings and pencil sketches. At the completion of her five year course she was awarded an (Honours) Diploma in Art. Known surviving works from this early period include a distinctive streetscape etching of her home suburb, Ormonde Street, Ashfield (1935).

Following the completion of her formal art training, Pecket established a studio on the seventh floor of 160 Castelreagh Street, in central Sydney, while living in a nearby women’s hostel. She initially painted and taught art, but lack of students and commissions during the war period saw her establish herself as a studio potter. With little competition she became quite successful during the 1940s and early 50s making decorative ware and she also taught pottery to students. In her late-life autobiography, Facets of My Life (1976), Pecket revealingly describes the increasing competition from other studio potters in Sydney which led to her closing her pottery in the mid-1950s.

Not long after the death of her mother in 1955 she purchased a house at 135 Bellevue Street in the northern Sydney suburb of Cammeray. Health problems saw her take in female lodgers to supplement her income, but after several years she built a new studio on the property, and once again began to paint, sculpt and teach art. While her early work was in the realist tradition her late career work was moderately influenced by abstraction. As well as her art, Pecket worked as a long-time packer of Splayds cutlery and hand-stamped and packed the first million sets sold in Australia.

During the early 1970s Pecket wrote her autobiography, Facets of My Life. In this work she describes her struggles to survive as an artist and how she found life-long comfort from her Christian beliefs. Frustratingly, the book mentions no other artists by name and gives very little information about her own art. Despite this, the work expresses the difficulties of single women to make a living during the mid-20th century, especially with the extra burden of a physical disability.

At the end of the text photographs of twenty of her works are included as well as a selection of seventy-five of her poems. As memoirs by artists are rare you would have thought the publication of this work would have increased the profile of this artist especially with the late 20th century interest in womens’ art, but this is not the case.

Her successful solo show at the East Sydney Technical College in 1937 seems to be her only known solo exhibition and there is no evidence of her exhibiting with any of the art societies. Despite this, Pecket was a moderately prolific artist who despite her physical limitations was able to make a living from her art in a diverse range of media. Pecket died in a nursing home in Healsville, Victoria in 1996.

Writers:

Silas Clifford-Smith

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