Italian-born Peter Petruccelli (1934-2013) came to Australia in 1956 and studied painting and printmaking at the National Gallery of Victoria from 1956- 62. He continued his studies at the London School of Art from 1962-65 and at the Academy of Fine Art in Rome from 1965- 67, before returning to Australia and establishing himself as a ceramist and painter. His first studio was in Burwood, Victoria, then he and his wife Mary Pancoast moved to Upper Beaconsfield where they produced functional ware under the label Petruccelli's Ceramics. In 1983, they were burnt out in the Ash Wednesday fires. Rebuilding their studio, they renamed it Stoney Creek Pottery. During the 1980s, Petruccelli experimented with a range of firing methods including bucchero, which he researched on a visit to Italy in 1984. By 1991, his forms had become architectural constructions combining cultural symbolism and surrealism in ways that transcend interpretation. He took up painting and drawing full-time in 1997 and also conducted art classes in the studio he had rebuilt at Upper Beaconsfield after the Ash Wednesday fires with the help of a Victorian Arts Council grant. His ceramic works are signed with a painted P, Peter or Petruccelli.

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