Zilles Printers was begun by Lewis Zilles in the early 1930s. It was in McKenzie Street Ballarat. His son Jeffrey also became a printer - letterpress, offset and screen printer. The business became Zilles Printers/Graphics and was in Armstrong Street and later Bell Street Ballarat. Items are work done for the Australian Defence Force bases at Portsea and Queenscliff. They were training bases - Officer Cadet School and Australian Staff College. Originally the base at Portsea was the Quarantine Station established in the late 1800s. International protocols required captains of arriving ships to provide a clean bill of health from the last port of call. If this was not possible all on board would be transferred to the Quarantine Station by boat for observations. This was to stop the spread of diseases such as cholera, small pox, typhoid fever, influenza and the plague. In 1952 it became a military training base - Officer Cadet School. The quarantine station still operated and the Army had to be prepared to evacuated in an emergency. This occurred in 1954 when 113 passengers on board the Strathaird were quarantined with smallpox. Cadets and staff came with their families and was a small township. Training for the Vietnam War was here, Now gone the remnants of the quarantine station and army activites can be seen. Under Point Nepean Community Trust. Fort Queenscliff dates from 1860 when it was an open battery known as Shortlands Bluff. The Garrison included volunteer artillery, engineers and infantry. It was a Coastal Defence Installation from 1883-1946. The base on Swan Island was part of this and soldiers from the Fort would go on detail to the Island each day. A permanent group with their families were housed there. The children would attend the local school in Queenscliff. It eventually became and still is a restricted area. In 1946 the Fort became home of the Army Command and Staff College. Officers came from overseas to train. Families would come with them and be accommodated in the main officers residence "Maytone" or private housing rented by the Army. Their children would attend local schools. Staff Colleges were all moved to Canberra. The Fort is now the Army Soldiers Career Management Agency and houses all historical documents related to the Army. .1 Off-white card with gold badge and black writing. .2 White card with separate page held together with blue and red ribbon. Badge in gold on front. Two Officer Cadet School flags - crossed and Christmas Greeting in blue inside card. .3 Off-white paper with Australian Staff College emblem. Blue print.2 Officer Cadet School emblem - lion and crown in centre. Flags - British and Australian .3 Emblem - crossed swords, owl and crownzilles printers, australian defence force, quarantine station portsea, officer cadet school, fort queenscliff, open battery, swan island, staff college, army command, zilles collection

Reinis Zusters OAM was born 15 October 1918 in Odessa, Ukraine, of Latvian parents. Zusters’ father died before he was two years old and he was raised in an orphanage from an early age. He had one sister. He studied Art at the Riga Technical College, Latvia, from 1935 to 1940. He married Aldija Kapteinis, and they had a daughter, Rudite (born 1942 in Riga). After World War II the Zusters family were refugees. They reached Western Australia in 1950, where they stayed for 6 months before moving to Canberra, ACT. In 1952, Zusters moved from Canberra to Pennant Hills in Sydney with his second wife, Arija Biks. Their daughter Laura was born in Sydney in 1956. In 1966, Zusters met his future third wife, Venita Salnajs. In 1969, Zusters bought a house in Greenwich, Sydney. He married Venita on September 17, 1976, and they moved to Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. Zusters died on 8 October, 1999 at Wentworth Falls, and was cremated at Rookwood Crematorium, Sydney. His ashes are buried in the Latvian section of Rookwood Cemetery. Zusters studied at the Technical College of Riga (Latvia), and at East Sydney Technical College, Australia. He was influenced by his Latvian cultural heritage, and admired the artist Voldemars Tone (1892-1958). Shortly after arrival in Australia, Zusters became a draughtsman with the Department of Works and Housing in Canberra. Later he was appointed chief designer with the Australian-American architectural firm Austin-Anderson, at St. Leonards, Sydney. Zusters practised as a full-time professional artist from 1968. Zusters was a prolific painter, predominantly in oils. He produced many large landscapes, including triptychs of the Blue Mountains. His landscapes were mountain scenes prepared in the manner of Jackson Pollock and completed with washes and pale glazes of colour. His cityscapes featured a rich paint surface and sharp-edged thickness of paint applied with a palette knife, layer upon layer. He painted urban scenes of Sydney, inland Australian scenes, and several major portraits including Sir Winston Churchill’s gardener (purchased by Art Gallery of NSW). He made many small informal portrait-drawings of friends. His usual signature was “Zusters”. His work is represented in numerous public and private collections in Australia and abroad. He won numerous prestigious awards in Australia, Japan and USA and was honoured with the Order of Australia Medal in 1994.

"I am an Australian of German parents born in Persia. I was taught by Peter Rushforth, with a very strong Japanese influence. My work attempts to incorporate these four elements of my history. For form, my influence comes from Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil as it is called in Germany. Techniques are informed by pottery from Japan, China, Korea and Germany. My colours are inspired by the Australian landscape. Using the language of woodfiring, I create a personal vocabulary with new subjects, grammar and syntax, which make each pot a one-off object containing all my diverse influences." (Roswitha Wulff)Roswitha WULFF (1941- ) Born Tabrize, Iran. Arrived Austrqalia c1949 Roswitha Wulff spent her early childhood with her mother, potter Helma Klett, in Germany. In 1964, she obtained a ceramics certificate from the East Sydney Technical College. From 1964-65, she worked with Robin Welch and Ian Sprague at Sprague's Mungeribar Pottery in Upper Beaconsfield, VIC. In 1966 she worked at the Sturt Pottery in Mittagong, NSW under Les Blakebrough. Between 1967 and 1969 Roswitha Wulff travelled overseas, spending 6 monthe with Robin Welch after his return to England and 9 months as a full-time thrower at Briglin Pottery, London, as well as working in potteries in Denmark and Germany. From 1969-70, she worked in North-West Pakistan as a research scholar for the Smithonian Institute and the University of NSW. Returning to Australia in 1970, she set up a workshop in Paddington, NSW, with the help of an Australia Council grant and taught part-time at the East Sydney Technical College and the Willoughby Workshop Art Centre. Since then she has been a lecturer and Head of Ceramics in many institutions, including the National Art School. In the 1990s she moved her studio to Botany Bay, NSW.. While working with the vessel form, she sees her pots as abstract landscapes. Recently she has also been working with wall tiles. During a residency at the Canberra School of Art in 2002, she developed tiles that looked like woodfired pillows with soft rounded rims. In 2007, she used such tiles to create a mural commemorating the Sesquicentenary of St Vincent's Hospital in Paddington. Woodfired stoneware bowl with flay ashSigned on baseroswitha wulff, jan feder, jan feder memorial ceramics collection, woodfire, ceramics, gippsland campus, botany bay studio pottery