Lucie Rie - Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, Exceptional Ceramics: Selections from the Estate of Jane Coper and the former Collection of Cyril Frankel London Wednesday, November 1, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Cyril Frankel, acquired directly from the artist, 1981
    Private collection

  • Exhibited

    ‘Issey Miyake meets Lucie Rie’, Sogetsu Gallery, Tokyo, 10 May–7 June; The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 27 June–30 July 1989, item 84
    ‘Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 20 February–26 May 1997, cat. 15.19
    'Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, and Their Pupils', Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, 2 October-16 December 1990; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 22 January-1 April 1991, item 29

  • Literature

    Yoshiaki Inui, Issey Miyake Meets Lucie Rie, exh. cat., Sogetsu Gallery, Tokyo, 1989, illustrated plate 36, p. 114
    Thomas Hoving, 'Serene Genius', Connoisseur Magazine, November 1989, illustrated pp. 148-49
    Cyril Frankel, ed., Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, and Their Pupils, exh. cat., Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, 1990, p. 25
    Margot Coatts, ed., Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1997, listed p. 148
    Emmanuel Cooper, Lucie Rie: Modernist Potter, New Haven and London, 2012, illustrated plate 89

  • Catalogue Essay

    The present lot is featured in the BBC Omnibus documentary Lucie Rie, directed by Cyril Frankel and presented by Sir David Attenborough, 1982, which coincided with Rie's 80th birthday and a major retrospective exhibition of her work at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The documentary captures Rie in her studio showing Attenborough some of her works including this Footed bowl on which he remarks 'That's a stunner!', [00:19:31-00:20:02].

  • Artist Biography

    Lucie Rie

    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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Property formerly in the Collection of Cyril Frankel

306

Footed bowl

1981
Porcelain, inlaid pink radiating lines, turquoise band, golden manganese lip, foot and well.
10 cm (3 7/8 in.) high, 22 cm (8 5/8 in.) diameter
Impressed with artist's seal.

Estimate
£50,000 - 70,000 ‡♠

Sold for £330,200

Contact Specialist

Antonia King
Head of Sale, Design
+44 20 7901 7944
Antonia.King@phillips.com
 

Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, Exceptional Ceramics: Selections from the Estate of Jane Coper and the former Collection of Cyril Frankel

London Auction 1 November 2023