Lucie Rie - Design London Wednesday, April 26, 2023 | Phillips

Design

London Auction 26 April 2023

  • Provenance

    Private collection, Aix-en-Provence, acquired directly from the artist, London, 1976
    Thence by descent to the present owner, 1978

  • Literature

    John Houston, ed., Lucie Rie: A Survey of Her Life and Work, exh. cat., The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1981, p. 81 for a similar example

  • Artist Biography

    Lucie Rie

    Austrian • 1902 - 1995

    Dame Lucie Rie studied under Michael Powolny at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna before immigrating to London in 1938. In London she started out making buttons for the fashion industry before producing austere, sparsely decorated tableware that caught the attention of modernist interior decorators. Eventually she hit her stride with the pitch-perfect footed bowls and flared vases for which she is best-known today. She worked in porcelain and stoneware, applying glaze directly to the unfired body and firing only once. She limited decoration to incised lines, subtle spirals and golden manganese lips, allowing the beauty of her thin-walled vessels to shine through. In contrast with the rustic pots of English ceramicist Bernard Leach, who is considered an heir to the Arts and Crafts movement, collectors and scholars revere Rie for creating pottery that was in dialogue with the design and architecture of European Modernism.

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94

Lucie Rie

Conical bowl

circa 1972
Porcelain, pale green glaze with a feathered manganese rim.
10 cm (3 7/8 in.) high, 22.7 cm (8 7/8 in.) diameter
Underside impressed with artist's seal. Together with a copy of the original invoice.

Estimate
£5,000 - 7,000 ‡♠

Sold for £6,985

Contact Specialist

Antonia King
Head of Sale, Design
+44 20 7901 7944
Antonia.King@phillips.com

Design

London Auction 26 April 2023