Allan Lowe

Allan Lowe (1907-2001) was a ceramic artist. Born in Melbourne, he moved to Ferntree Gully in 1939, beginning to make pots for a living in 1944 after he was discharged from the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. Three years later, the National Gallery of Victoria purchased some of his ceramics; this marked the first acquisition of Australian studio work by a state gallery. Lowe worked for many years with a simple kick wheel built by his father out of parts from a petrol bowser. His earthenware was characterised by earthy tones and simple abstract forms; in the 1940s he was notably influenced by Aboriginal art, and he is now considered to be one of the first potters to have drawn sympathetically on Aboriginal colours, themes and motifs. The National Gallery of Victoria held a retrospective of Lowe's work in 1979.

Reshid Bey was a Melbourne-based painter and teacher. Born in Berlin when his father was Turkish ambassador there, he came to Australia, his mother's homeland, when he was a young man. He studied in London and Paris, at Melbourne's National Gallery School and under AD Colquhoun, and became a member of the Twenty Melbourne Painters' Society. He exhibited at a number of venues including the Paris Salons and the British Portrait Painters Society, and later taught art at his own school. Amongst his portrait subjects is Sybil Craig, the still-life painter and war artist.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Alan Lowe and Marian Lowe 2000
© Estate of Reshid Bey