Lucie Rie
Jane Coper, circa 1995
‘Lucie Rie: A Survey of her Life and Work’, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich, November 1981; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 17 February-28 March 1982, item 112
‘Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 20 February–26 May 1997, cat. 5.1
‘Lucie Rie Gebrannte Erde’, MAK, Vienna, 14 July-12 September 1999, item 57
John Houston, ed., Lucie Rie: A Survey of her Life and Work, exh. cat., Crafts Council and The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1981, illustrated p. 42
Margot Coatts, ed., Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1997, illustrated p. 67
Tony Birks, Lucie Rie, Catrine, 2009, illustrated p. 195
Emmanuel Cooper, Lucie Rie: Modernist Potter, New Haven and London, 2012, illustrated plate 70
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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