Jo Caddy (1914 – 2005) was an Adelaide-based painter and ceramicist, who worked in the media of acrylic, oil, printmaking, drawing, and ceramics. She focused on portraiture in both her paintings and ceramics, including "people pots", vases featuring human faces.

Jo Caddy was born in Seattle and grew up in Canada. She always had a love of drawing and at age 14, exaggerated her age in order to enrol in Fine Art at the Vancouver School of Art where she won a scholarship and graduated in 1934.

After some years farming in Cornwall, England, she and her then husband and their children migrated to a small island farm off the coast of Tasmania in 1952. The family moved to Adelaide in 1957, where Jo took up lecturing in Fine Art at the South Australian School of Art. She also taught adult classes at the WEA, the University of Adelaide, TAFE and later Girton Girls’ School (now Pembroke School). She was a founding member of the Contemporary Arts Society of South Australia and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of South Australia and undertook guest lectureships in Toronto and Glasgow.

In 1966, after Jo and her youngest daughter returned from a trip overseas, they moved into the gatekeeper’s cottage at Grove Hill, Norton Summit, which Jo loved. There was a semi-derelict cottage which she converted into a studio, put in a swimming pool and created a wonderful environment in which to create works of art. Although primarily interested in portrait painting, she did diversify as testified by studies of her travels in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. She took sketch books wherever she went and upon her return would work on these drafts until she had enough work to mount an exhibition. In these years she painted many portraits from life.

It was at Grove Hill that she began to experiment with ceramics as she had the space to accommodate a wheel and kilns, plus retain her painting spaces. Utilitarian pottery held little interest for her and she instead embraced a more sculptural, decorative approach making head vase, people pots and tiles, including a life-sized mermaid embedded at the bottom of her swimming pool. It was here that Jo loved to entertain and the house was always full of eclectic, interesting people, former students, fellow artists, family and friends and she was always at her most creative and productive during these years, painting her finest portraits.

Jo passed away in 2005 after a career of nearly seven decades and leaving a significant, unique and lasting legacy in her works and influence on the Australian art scene. She was a role model and mentor to and outspoken supporter of women in a world that was typically dominated by men. This website has been developed to preserve her legacy and share her works with the world.

  • Jo Caddy was an avid traveller, always on the lookout for new materials. Major trips included:

    1965-66 Greece and North America
    1966 Southern Africa
    1968 East Africa
    1968-69 New Caledonia and Timor
    1977 Himalayas
    1978-79 UK, USSR, Turkey, Iran, Spain, China, Indonesia, India, Kashmir
    1980 Indonesia
    1984 Greece, Italy, France and Spain
    1987 Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

  • 1960 CAS Farmers Blaxland Gallery, Sydney
    1963 Mildura Art Gallery, Mildura
    1964 Collectors Gallery, Perth
    1966 White Studio, Adelaide
    1966 Art and Decor Gallery, Adelaide
    1967 White Studio, Adelaide
    1968 Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya
    1970 Habitat Gallery, Adelaide
    1972 Die Gallery, Tanunda
    1972 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
    1972 Atelier Gallery, Adelaide
    1973 Atelier Gallery, Adelaide
    1974 Festival Centre Gallery, Adelaide
    1975 Playhouse Gallery, Festival Theatre, Adelaide
    1976 Caulfield Art Centre, Melbourne
    1976 Munster Arms Gallery, Adelaide
    1976 Andris Lidums Gallery, Adelaide
    1976 Collector Gallery, Perth
    1977 Jam Factory, Adelaide
    1980 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
    1980 Adelaide Festival of Arts
    1980 Royal South South Australian Society of Arts
    1980 Gallery De Graphic, Adelaide
    1981 Studio Papilio, Melbourne
    1981 Jolly Frog Gallery, Adelaide
    1982 Distelfink Gallery, Melbourne
    1982 Bonython Gallery, Adelaide
    1982 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
    1984 Festival of Perth
    1984 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
    1986 Maritime Museum, Port Adelaide
    1987 Royal South Australian Society of Arts
    1988 Jam Factory, Adelaide
    1988 Reade Art Gallery, Adelaide
    1988 Royal South Australian Society of Arts
    1989 Al Khobar Gallery, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
    1990 Rituals Gallery, Adelaide
    1990 Vincents Gallery, Adelaide
    1991 Adelaide Town Hall
    1991 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
    1992 Kensington Gallery, Adelaide
    1992 Art Images Gallery, Adelaide
    1992 Royal South Australian Society of Arts

  • 1934 Vancouver Art School - Travelling Scholarship
    1967 Portia Geach Memorial Prize
    1981 Kadina Portrait Prize

    • Benko, Nancy (1969) Art and Artists of South Australia. Lidums Family.

    • Bormann, Gottfried (1984) Keramik Der Welt. Dusseldorf: Sansstrait.

    • Bruton, Dean (1986) Recollections: The Contemporary Art Society of South Australia 1943-86.

    • Germaine, Max (1979) Artists and Galleries of Australia. Lansdowne Publishers.

    • Germaine, Max (1984) Artists and Galleries of Australia and New Zealand. Boolarong Publications.

    • Iaonnou, Noris Ceramics of South Australia 1836-1986: From Folk to Studio Pottery. (1986) Wakefield Press.

    • Johnson, Vivien (2010) Once upon a time in Papunya. University of New South Wales Press.

    • McCullough, Alan Encyclopedia of Australian Art

    • McDonald, Jan, Australian Artists Index

    • Speck, Catherine (editor) Heysen to Heysen: Selected letters of Hans Heysen and Nora Heysen. Wakefield Press.

    • Wilson, S.C. From shadow into light: South Australian women artists since colonisation. Pennsylvania State University.