Peter Rushforth (1920-2015) was born in Manly, NSW. After serving in the war and as a prisoner of war on the Burma railway, he began training as a potter in 1946 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He continued his studies at the National Gallery School in Melbourne and then at the National Art School in Sydney. In 1951, he set up a studio at Beecroft, NSW. and took up an appointment at the National Art School, where he went on to become Head of the Ceramic Department. He travelled extensively in the UK, Denmark and the USA on a Churchill Fellowship and spent time working in Japan. In 1966, he moved to Church Point, NSW, and in 1978 to Shipley in the Blue Mountains. He retired from teaching in 1978 to work full-time as a potter. In his professional practice, he produced high-fired stoneware vessels in a woodfired kiln with chun, tenmoku, limestone and ash glazes, and wax resist, brush or inlay decoration. In 1985, he was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to ceramics and, in that year, the National Gallery of Victoria held a retrospective exhibition of his work. His mark is an impressed or incised 'PR'.

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