Dame Lucy Rie (England) ceramics

Dame Lucie Rie was born in Vienna, Austria in 1902 and received her education from the Vienna Gymnasium and the Arts and Crafts School. Her early ceramic pieces were influenced by a variety of styles, including late Neoclassicism, Jugendstil, modernism, and Japonism. In 1938, Rie fled to England to escape persecution and during World War II, she made and sold fine ceramic buttons to survive. In 1947, she was joined in her studio by Hans Coper, who was also a German-born artist.

Rie's innovative slip-glaze surface treatment and kiln processing techniques influenced a whole generation of younger British ceramists. Her work was renowned for its simplicity, precision, and elegance, often created through the use of "finger wiping" to achieve subtle surface textures. She was also known for her experimentation with glazes, producing a wide range of striking and subtle colours.

Rie held her first solo exhibition as more... a potter in 1949, and her work was showcased in the Arts Council Retrospective of 1967. She exhibited alongside Coper in Rotterdam in 1967 and Hamburg in 1972, and was the focus of major exhibitions in Düsseldorf, West Germany, in 1978, as well as at Sainsbury Place and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1981-82. Rie was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 in recognition of her contributions to the field of ceramics.

She continued working in her studio until her death at age 93 in 1995. Rie's unique style and contributions to the world of ceramics have made her work highly sought after by collectors and have earned her representation in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. less...