potter, sculptor, enameller, china painter, illustrator and author, was born on 14 July 1886 at Port Augusta, SA. Known as 'Lalla’ – a name she sometimes used on less-valued pots – she moved to Victoria when young and lived much of her life in the family home, Palermo, in the Melbourne suburb of Kew, later with her sister, Alice, a doctor. She trained in art and craft at the Working Men’s College, Melbourne. Her training did not include pottery, which was only taught there after Alan Finlay was appointed in 1910 (who may have then given her some lessons); her mother was a potter and she first made pottery at home.
Correll exhibited sculpture at the 1907 Women’s Work Exhibition in Melbourne and won second prize (after Margaret Baskerville ) in class 21, 'figures in bas relief’, for Day Dreams . Both pottery and enamels were shown with the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (MSWPS) in 1910-12, and her enamels were presented to members of the MSWPS as gifts. She continued to show her pottery with the Yarra Sculptors’ Society and the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria until after World War II.
Correll’s early work tended to be hand built and fired by Mr Walker of the Tessellated Tile Company at Mitcham, although Peers states that in the 1920s her pots were fired by Blanche Davies, a fellow member of MSWPS. They included richly coloured art nouveau bowls, some decorated with animals à la Castle Harris . In 1941 she built a kiln at her Kew home, and it was here that she produced her distinctive lightly coloured, hand-modelled figure groups of modern life. The work she fired there is often marked 'Australian China’.
Valeria Correll also wrote and illustrated a children’s book, Gay Gambols: A Nonsense Story , published by Edward Vidler at Melbourne in 1923. She died at Melbourne on 29 April 1973, survived by her sister who donated some of her pottery to the National Galleries of Australia and Victoria.
- Writers:
- Miley, Caroline
Note: Heritage biography.
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
