Emma Smith Gillies (1900–1936) was a Scottish

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US * Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska * Potters, New Je ...

best known for her early adaptation of

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

painted vases and jugs.

Pottery

Emma Gillies was born in the small town of Haddington, outside the city of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

in Scotland. In Haddington, Gillies joined the Scottish Women’s Rural Institutes (SWRI) in the early 1920s and was taught by Catherine Blair, a founder of the Institute, how to decorate blanks in the Mak’Merry Pottery style. Shortly thereafter, her talents led her to teach classes in the decoration of blanks to new members of the SWRI with Betty Wright, a founding member of the Mak’Merry Pottery collective In 1929, Gillies moved to Edinburgh where she began to attend pottery classes in the Sculpture Department of

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, the only program which offered Pottery Classes at the College. There she studied under the tutelage of renowned sculptor and Head of School

Alexander Carrick Alexander Carrick (20 February 1882 – 1966) was a Scottish sculptor. He was one of Scotland's leading monumental sculptors of the early part of the 20th century. He was responsible for many architectural and ecclesiastical works as well as m ...

until her graduation in 1932 where, in her last semester, she took part in an Exhibition of Metalwork and Pottery "at 5 Ramsay Lane nEdinburgh" published in the Edinburgh newspaper ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...

'' on 3 December of that year. Not a week later, the same publication announced that Gillies had been awarded a one-hundred pound Travelling Scholarship to the

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

. The following academic semester, Emma Gillies attended the Royal College of Art in London under

William Staite Murray William Staite Murray (1881–1962) was an English studio potter. Biography He was born in Deptford, London and attended pottery classes at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1909 - 1912. He worked with Cuthbert Hamilton, a member of the ...

, one of the foremost Scottish potters of the 20th century. However, Gillies was unable to finish her studies in London due to poor health which forced her to return home after completing only a year. Despite her illness, Gillies was exhibited in the prestigious Art Exhibition of the

Society of Scottish Artists The Society of Scottish Artists is a Scottish artist-run organization which seeks to ''promote and encourage experimentation and the "adventurous spirit" in Scottish art.'' It was founded in 1891 and its main space for annual exhibitions has bee ...

in October 1935 to critical acclaim before her death at the age of thirty-six in March 1936. After her death, her older brother and famous Scottish

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and

still-life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...

painter

William George Gillies Sir William George Gillies (1898–1973) was a renowned Scottish landscape and still life painter. He is often referred to simply as W. G. Gillies. Life Gillies was born in Haddington, East Lothian. He had just enrolled at the Edinburgh C ...

painted many of her works as still lifes to memorialise her through his own work. In 2012, several of her art works were discovered at

. There have been two exhibitions which showed her work posthumously.

Readings

* Orton-Hatzis, Anna. "Emma Gillies: Rediscovered", ''Scottish Pottery Society Annual Review'', May 2015. * Soden, Joanna. ''Emma Gillies: Potter and Muse'', Royal Scottish Academy, February 2006.

Exhibitions

* Exhibition of Metalwork and Pottery, Edinburgh, December 1932 * Art Exhibition of the Scottish Society of Artists, Edinburgh, October 1935 * Potter and Muse, RSA Library Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, April 2006 – 30 July 2006 * Emma Gillies Rediscovered, University of Edinburgh Library, Edinburgh, December 2014 – March 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillies, Emma Smith 1900 births 1936 deaths British potters Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Art Deco artists Women potters 20th-century ceramists British ceramicists Scottish ceramicists British women ceramicists Scottish women ceramicists