Dame Lucie Rie (née Gomperz) was the doyenne of modern 20th Century studio ceramics, influencing a generation of British ceramicists who would follow her lead including John Ward, Alison Britton, Jennifer Lee and Hans Coper.
Born in Vienna on 16 March 1902, Rie was educated at home before enrolling at the Kunstgewerbeschule under Michael Powolny. Her work was so highly regarded that some of her pots were sent to the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Moderned in Paris in 1925 by Josef Hoffmann, one of the co-founders of the Wiener Werkstatte. The following year Rie married businessman Hans Rie, however she increasingly devoted herself to her craft, focussing on domestic wares and exploring a modernist aesthetic.
During the 1920s and 1930s she exhibited in Vienna, winning a silver medal at the Paris International Exhibition in 1937, before having to flee Vienna for London in 1938 due to the rise of Nazism.
In London, Lucie Rie established a studio in Albion Mews, near Hyde Park where she stayed for 50 years. On her arrival in Britain, Rie initially began by making buttons for the fashion industry through the firm Bimini to earn a living, before moving on to develop a range of tableware, perfect for the new modernist interiors, that sold through retailers such as Heals of London.
Working in porcelain and stoneware, Rie gradually developed her style producing flared vases and footed bowls for which she is known today. They were seen as the epitome of a new European modernism focussed on fine form, with incised sgraffito lines, beautiful dripped manganese rims and sophisticated colour glazes ranging from deep manganese browns to rich and striking cobalt blues and uranium yellows.
‘I’m a potter, but he was an artist’ were the famed words of the celebrated ceramicist Dame Lucie Rie, in a 1988 interview on her creative partnership with her pupil and contemporary Hans Coper. The work of Rie and Coper are both of seminal importance in the development of modern British studio ceramics, and understanding their differences and similarities offers great insight into this fascinating and collectable area of decorative art. The two shared a studio from 1946 until 1958, and remained friends until Coper’s death in 1981, and although their styled remained distinct, the effect of each can easily be seen in the work of the other.
Key Facts
- Lucie Rie was born in Vienna, Austria. She emigrated to England in 1938 following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany.
- Lucie Rie was made Dame Commander of the British Order of the British Empire in 1991.
- Rie’s work is exhibited in major museums around the world including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The V&A, London and York Art Gallery.
- In 2009, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London reconstructed part of her studio at Albion Mews in their ceramics gallery.
