Klytie Pate (1912-2010) was born Klytie Sclater in Melbourne. In 1931, she was encouraged to study pottery with Ola Cohn by her aunt, the artist Christian Waller, who had adopted her at the age of sixteen. She went on to take drawing classes at the national Gallery School, before transferring to the Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT University) in 1932. She joined the staff there in 1937 and ran the Pottery School from 1942- 45 while John Knight was away at war. In 1946, she set up a studio in her home at South Yarra, making mainly wheel-thrown vases, bowls and lidded jars, carved, incised, modelled or pierced, often in an art deco style, and lustrously glazed. In 1964, she and her husband, William Pate, whom she had married in 1937, moved to a larger house in Kew where she continued to work as a potter until 1998. In 1991 she received the Order of Australia for her contribution to the arts. Her works are signed with an incised 'Klytie Pate'.

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