Lucie Rie, Albion Mews
Bonhams, London, "Dame Lucie Rie: Sale of a Lifetime," April 17, 1997, lot 196
Private collection
Bonhams, London, “International Contemporary Ceramics,” September 20, 2005, lot 138
Lucie Rie: A Retrospective, exh. cat., The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 2010, p. 83 for a similar example
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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