Grace Seccombe Australia, 1880-1956

Grace Povey Seccombe (nee Capper) was born in the potteries district of England, at Tunstall in Staffordshire in 1880. Her father was a potter and Grace followed in his footsteps before the family migrated to Sydney in 1902. She studied black and white drawing at Sydney Technical College, and then married and it wasn't until 1926 that she took up art in a professional capacity, concentrating on the manufacture of hand-painted earthenware. She worked from a modest studio that was part of the family home in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood, making use of the local clay. She had become a member of the Sydney Society of Arts and Crafts in 1930 and exhibited with the society until 1951. After her first major exhibition in 1931, staged by the Society of Arts and Crafts, she was contracted to sell her work through the Sydney jewellers Prouds Ltd. stores. She also sold through the Blaxland Gallery at the former Grace Bros in Broadway and the Taronga Zoo gift shop. During the 1940s Seccombe became known for her small hand-modelled, brightly painted pottery birds and animals. Her early kookaburras and other birds and animals of the 1920s are marked 'Australia’ and 'S’. The range of Australiana fauna she modelled in the 1930s and 1940s for Prouds Ltd are either initialled 'GS’ or signed 'Grace Seccombe Australia’ on the base. She also designed plates, dishes and bowls decorated with Aboriginal motifs in the 1930s and 1940s.

The earliest auction listing we have for Grace Seccombe is in 1986 and in total 11 works by the artist have been offered for sale, of which 11 (100%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $2,319 for Tan and Cream Kookaburra Sitting on a Yellow and Brown Raised Base sold by Amanda Addams Auctions in April 2007. No works have been offered for sale this year, and the last sale we have recorded for the artist was in 2007. Works by Grace Seccombe are held by the National Gallery of Australia.