TO THE MANOR BORN
The Potter family has close ties with the worlds of arts and culture, and foremost, each other.
Socialite and philanthropist Lady Primrose Potter, with her daughter Primrose and granddaughter Zofia, discusses her family’s close ties with the worlds of arts and culture, and foremost, each other. By Jane Albert.
Primrose Potter has discussed make-up over lunch with Estée Lauder, dined numerous times with Frank Sinatra and enjoyed a private dinner with Queen Elizabeth II in the Royal Box in London. But the company she prefers above all else is that of her granddaughter Zofia Krasicki. “She loves her granny and her granny loves her,” states Lady Potter.
She may be simply “granny” to 23-year-old Zofia, but the name Lady Potter – indeed “Potter” itself – evokes much, much more to generations of Australians from all walks of life, be they businesspeople, dancers, singers, scientists or those from a certain social milieu. “There’s this huge disparity between ‘being Lady Potter’ and who she actually is as a person,” Zofia says. “She’s incredibly approachable, given her privileged background. She’s not elitist in any way.”
Just who exactly is Lady Potter? For the record, her title is dismissed within minutes of us chatting. “Call me Primrose,” she instructs. “I don’t like being Lady Potter all the time, it’s too formal.” And so begins a conversation that meanders delightfully from the great love of her life, her late husband Sir Ian Potter, and their travels throughout the world tending his various business interests; to her only daughter Primrose Krasicki (nicknamed ‘Pitty Pat’ to distinguish the two); to her lifelong devotion to the arts as board member, patron and endlessly generous philanthropist; and of course, granddaughter Zofia.
There is no denying the genetic make-up shared by the three generations of strong women, all of whom talk passionately about travel, fashion and the arts. Certainly Lady Potter’s eight-plus decades have resulted in some fascinating adventures and countless intriguing people. Primrose Catherine Anderson-Stuart grew up in Sydney, where she went to school at Ascham and enjoyed a childhood steeped in ballet, music and opera. She was married for 17 years to doctor Roger Dunlop, Primrose’s father, but they divorced in 1969. It was at a dinner party in 1970 hosted by former Prime Minister Sir William and his wife Sonia McMahon that she met Sir Ian. The spark was immediate and everlasting, and precipitated her move to Melbourne. “We had a very interesting life together,” she says of her businessman and financier husband. One of Australia’s most visionary and internationally minded business leaders, he was nevertheless intensely private, a man whose passion for the arts saw him help establish the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (which gave rise to the Australian Ballet) and resulted in a life-long dedication to giving (on condition of anonymity).
The couple travelled widely and it was in New York that their friendships with Estée Lauder and Frank Sinatra were formed. “We got to know Frank quite well; he was charming,” Lady Potter says. “I wouldn’t want to cross him – but then I wouldn’t want to cross anyone.” Cosmetics doyenne Estée Lauder was an entertaining dining companion. “Estée was lovely. She’d say: ‘C’mon honey, we’ll go and have some lunch’,” she recalls in a perfect Noo Yawk accent. “She would always turn up looking beautiful in the most lovely Givenchy clothes and she had a great big handbag she’d rummage
“I’ve been incredibly lucky: I’ve got two very supportive parents who were very hands-on, and a granny who was like a third parent”
through and bring out a big bottle and brush and say: ‘I’m just going to give you a little glow’, and she’d powder my nose!”
Her daughter Primrose’s relationship with her stepfather, Sir Ian, was one of great affection. “We got on brilliantly, he was always so interesting,” she says from her home in Melbourne, where she lives with her Polish husband Jerzy Krasicki v Siecin (“It’s a mouthful, we just use ‘Krasicki’ or KVS,” she says with a laugh). “Ian was very clever with work and I think very much like all of us, he had the attitude: ‘If you’re going to do something then just get up, do it, and finish it off.’ Which is terrific.”
She also caught the travel bug at a young age, when her maternal grandmother instructed her to move to Italy and learn Italian; and she travelled regularly with her mother and Sir Ian, from the Atlas Copco copper mines in Africa to New York, London, and even Botswana. She, too, enjoyed the company of numerous entertaining friends and celebrities, including American actress Doris Roberts, singer Rosetta Miller and Pamela Warrender, nee Myer. Her stepfather’s can-do attitude followed her into the workplace, first writing for the Sun-Herald and later at the then-Australian Opera.
Primrose met and fell in love with her Polish count, who was living in Melbourne after quite literally jumping ship in Tasmania during a naval visit a few years earlier. The pair married in 1993 and Zofia was born a year later.
Zofia may be only 23 but her young life has already exposed her to a broader tableau than your average Australian twentysomething. “We’d go to Europe at least once or twice a year and, being an only child, I was always dragged off – or at the time it seemed like being dragged off – to various adult arts and cultural events. The first time I was taken to the Louvre I was very put out, because a lot of my friends were going to Disneyland for the summer; another time we went to a cousin’s wedding in Poland and they had it in one of our former castles with a moat around it. It was like being in a fairytale,” she says from London. “I’m not sure at what point I realised things were different from my friends. [But] I’ve been incredibly lucky: I’ve got two very supportive parents who were very hands-on, and a granny who was like a third parent.”
In 2015 Zofia was formally introduced to European society at the exclusive invitation-only le Bal des Debutantes at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Zofia describes the three-day event as a unique experience that has left her with some treasured friendships, although she could take or leave the photo shoots and media interviews that went with it. “Some people do go in hoping to come out a celebrity, which wasn’t my hope. I came out with a lot of good friends and amazing memories,” she says.
In addition to a shared love of travel, four generations of the matriarchal line have enjoyed a special bond through a mutual appreciation of the arts. Lady Potter tells me her mother Cathy took her to her first ballet 81 years ago, a Ballets Russes performance of Acts II and III from Swan Lake that saw her immediately hooked; while her mother later took Primrose to the famous Tivoli circuit in Sydney. “You got to dress up in your favourite party dress: it was fabulous; we were all bedazzled by it,” she recalls. Lady Potter, in turn, introduced her granddaughter to the ballet and later the visual arts. “If you start these things at a young age you grow up just loving them,” says Lady Potter, who still regularly attends the Australian Ballet, and visits the National Gallery of Victoria and National Gallery of Australia with Zofia and Primrose.
Like her husband before her, Lady Potter is an exceptional philanthropist, and in 1988 was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the arts and community (she was later promoted
“I think if you can afford to do something it’s your duty to look after other people. And it’s very satisfying to have helped someone”
to Companion of the Order). Many years after his death in 1994, Sir Ian’s generosity is still legion. Founded in 1964, the Ian Potter Foundation has now distributed $256 million across the arts, environment, science, medical research, education and community. He was truly an enlightened philanthropist, and Lady Potter is no different, giving generously of both her time and money. Her board memberships range from the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust to Bell Shakespeare, and she is a member of the Howard Florey Institute and patron-in-chief of the Melbourne Opera. She has also raised funds for the Victorian AIDS Council, the Smith Family and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, where she is a committee member alongside Dame Quentin Bryce, Marie Bashir and Ros Packer. “They wanted to call us ‘eminent women’ but we all jacked up at that and said: ‘No, we’ll be ambassadors.’”
In 2010 the Australian Ballet renamed its Melbourne headquarters the Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre in recognition of her 35 years’ involvement with the national company, where until recently she had been president of Annual Giving for 25 years. When asked why she gives so much, she replies simply: “I think if you can afford to do something it’s your duty to look after other people. And it’s very satisfying to have helped someone, then find they’ve done something really well down the line.”
For Zofia, her grandmother made a big impression from when she was still young. “She was this incredibly glamorous, sophisticated woman who always looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine and always had some party or event to go to overseas: not your typical grandparent. But whenever she was back in Melbourne we would have sleepovers. We had a unique relationship,” says Zofia, recalling a grandmother who has kept the first book she ever wrote, The Cat Wedding; still has the Easter bonnet Zofia made her in kindergarten; and has framed some of Zofia’s first drawings and hung them on her beach house walls. “As I’ve gotten older the relationship has changed as I appreciate more fully what she’s done,” she says, referencing the huge support she gave the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, a time when others in her social circle shied away. “She’s always been incredibly ahead of her time. Back then it was taboo for someone like her to be around AIDS, and it changed the perception. She’s never been afraid to step outside the box,” Zofia says.
For Lady Potter, the bond with her granddaughter was forged when Zofia was a mere 10 minutes old. “I rushed to the hospital and held her, she was wrapped up in a towel with these big eyes staring up at me,” Lady Potter recalls fondly. “We’ve always been close; I think we’re very lucky.” When Zofia began her degree at the Whitehouse Institute of Design she moved in with her grandmother, who lived close by the Melbourne campus. “She hadn’t had anyone living in the house since Ian died 23 years ago. It was lovely and I actually really miss it. And I miss her terribly,” says Zofia, who moved to London in April and soon begins an internship with Tank magazine. “In a lot of ways she taught me to be very independent, and a lot of the person I’ve become and what I hope to do has been her influence.”
It’s a fortunate life, no more so than in the remarkable bond these three women share. “It’s a privilege, really, one’s life just worked out that way,” Lady Potter says, brushing off suggestions she played a part. But you get the sense she’d give it all up – the opening nights, the celebrity friends, indeed the lifestyle itself – for family. “Grannies are a very special relationship. I was very close with my grandmother; my daughter was very close with my mother; and my granddaughter and I are very close. I think we’re very lucky. We’re all a bit of a gang.” ■