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village were abandoned, remaining empty until December 1925, when two young women –

Gladys Short and Marjorie Johnstone – fired with enthusiasm and creative energy, arrived at
Olifantsfontein to establish what they called the Ceramic Studio. Both had attended the

School of Art at the Durban Technical College and Short had also trained in London at the
Royal College of Art from 1919 to 1921. After returning to South Africa she had opened a

small pottery studio in Durban opposite the School of Art, but after a year or two she became
dissatisfied with her inadequate facilities and wanted to ‘branch out into something bigger’

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(as Johnstone, her assistant from 1924, put it many years later ). Johnstone was friendly with
the Cullinan family and suggested that they might be able to obtain suitable premises at
Olifantsfontein. In this way, with the help of Rowland Cullinan, they managed to rent a kiln,

workshop, and living quarters at the abandoned potters’ village.

In February 1926 they invited Joan Methley, who had studied with Short in both Durban and

London, to join them. (Figs 2.10 & 2.11.) Marjorie Johnstone, who married into the Cullinan
family, left in October 1926 and was replaced by Audrey Frank, who had recently completed

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her studies at the Durban School of Art; and in 1928 Thelma Currie, another ex-student from
Durban and the RCA joined the partnership. Under the creative leadership of these

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remarkable women (who have become known as the 'women of Olifantsfontein' ) the studio
produced architectural ceramics of a kind never before seen in the country, as well as a wide
variety of tableware and studio pottery