Mollie Douglas was born Mary Emily Douglas in Sydney, NSW. She completed a Diploma in Design and Crafts at East Sydney Technical College (ESTC) in 1942 and started teaching night classes there in 1944. In 1946 she set up her studio at Turramurra, holding her first exhibition at David Jones, Sydney, in 1948. In the early 1950s, she moved from earthenware to stoneware and started a lifelong interest in locally-sourced clays and glazes. By 1954 she had became a full-time staff member at ESTC, teaching there four days and two nights a week, and also spending one day a week at the small pottery department she had established at St George Technical College. With Ivan Englund, Ivan McMeekin and Peter Rushforth, she was one of the original four members of the Potters’ Society of New South Wales (later the Potters’ Society of Australia) when it was formed in 1956. She was the Australian delegate to the First World Congress of Craftsmen held at Columbia University, New York, in 1964. In 1968, she became Head of the School of Art and Design at St George Technical College, with responsibility for all TAFE institutions in NSW. In 1991, she received a Visual Arts/Craft Board Emeritus award. Works to 1952 are marked with an incised 'MD’, after which she used an impressed version.
- Writers:
-
Judith Pearce
- Date written:
- 2013
- Last updated:
- 2013
