Pioneering studio potter, printmaker and teacher, was born in Melbourne. Her mother left the family when she was a small child, and after conflict with her new stepmother, Clytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller and her husband Napier Waller, both artists who encouraged and nurtured her career. Christian Waller in particular introduced her to theosophy and to classical mythology, all of which were to be major influences on her work. Christian Waller, who was interested in astrology and the occult, persuaded her to change her name to “Klytie”. Her first art lessons were in modelling with the sculptor Ola Cohn in 1931. The following year she enrolled in studied painting and drawing classes at the National Gallery School under W.B. McInnes and Charles Wheeler. She soon transferred to the Melbourne Technical College where she studied figure drawing and applied design as well as modelling and sculpture. In 1932 she completed a series of plaster masks for the Wallers’ home at Ivanhoe, Victoria, and printed her only linocut Limpang Tung . Published (as Klytie Sclater) in Manuscripts no.3 (November 1932), p.12, it shows Waller’s influence. She made fired pottery from about 1936. Her first solo exhibition, when she showed pottery, was held at the Kominsky Gallery, Melbourne, in 1941 and showed the dominant influence of Christian Waller’s Art Deco sensibility.
In 1937 she married fellow studio potter William Pate. After her marriage she began to teach pottery at Melbourne Technical College where she remained until 1945, resigning to become a full-time professional potter. Two years later, the National Gallery of Victoria made its first purchase of studio pottery – a ginger jar by Pate and a piece by Alan Lowe. Her work was exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1983 and at Sydney’s Macquarie Galleries in 1989 and 1990. She continued to live and work in Melbourne until her career was ended by frail old age.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
Joanna Mendelssohn
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2013
