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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  • Lucie Rie and Hans Coper working together in Lucie Rie’s Albion Mews Studio, London, circa 1950.
    © Sainsbury Centre, UEA
     
    • Provenance

      Hans Coper, gifted directly from the artist, December 1949
      Jane Coper, by descent, 1981

    • Exhibited

      ‘Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 20 February–26 May 1997, cat. 17.7

    • Literature

      Margot Coatts, ed., Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1997, illustrated p. 127

    • 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 from the Estate of Jane Coper

314

'All debts cancelled' bowl

1949
Porcelain with shiny white glaze, the lip with a sgraffito personalisation through a band of manganese glaze.
4.1 cm (1 5/8 in.) high, 10.1 cm (3 7/8 in.) diameter
Impressed with artist's seal. Inscribed FOR HANS COPER CHRISTMAS 1949 FROM HIS BOSS LUCIE RIE ALL DEBTS ARE CANCELLED.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£30,000 - 40,000 

Sold for £57,150

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