William Ricketts was born in Richmond, Victoria on 11 December 1899. For a time he worked as a designer for a Melbourne jeweller. During this time he produced some porcelain. By 1935 he had established a studio at Olinda, in the Dandenongs, Victoria. His first charcoal-fired kiln was built by Hatton Beck. Inspired by a visit to central Australia in the early 1930s Ricketts devoted himself to making a sanctuary of his Olinda property where his sculptural ceramics glorified the Aboriginal and his way of life in the Australian bush. This sanctuary is now administered by the Victorian Forestry Commission as the William Ricketts Sanctuary.

 

Another more remote sanctuary was established at Pitchi-Ritchi, approximately seventy-five kilometers south of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Here Ricketts again glorified the Aborigines while living amongst them.

 

In 1970 Ricketts took an exhibition of his work to India. He has developed an intensely personal philosophy and religion combining many aspects of Aboriginal, Eastern and Western religions.