Phyllis Shillito

Phyllis Shillito (1895-1980), designer and teacher, grew up in Yorkshire and trained and taught at Halifax Technical School before moving to teach design, craft and principles of art at Winchester School of Art and Liverpool City School of Art. In 1923 she sailed to Brisbane with her parents; she stayed there, teaching part-time, until 1925, when she gained a job at the Sydney Technical College, Darlinghurst (which became East Sydney Technical College in 1935). While continuing with her own watercolours, illustrations and bookplates – she was an Archibald and Wynne finalist several times, and collaborated on illustration with May Wall, author of Blinky Bill - she established the college’s diploma of design and crafts, which covered a great variety of subjects by the 1940s. Shillito was promoted several times over the 1940s and 1950s, until by 1958 she was acting head of the school of women’s handicrafts. For years, she wrote and spoke about design in all kinds of forums including the ABC television program Woman’s World. Having retired from the Tech in 1960, she opened the Shillito Design School in Grosvenor Street in 1962. The Art Gallery of New South Wales has one of her watercolours.