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, February 1982, item 28
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. 52
Emmanuel Cooper, 'Lucie Rie-Potter', Ceramic Review, no. 72, November-December 1981, illustrated p. 5
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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