Chinese ceramics may grab the big headlines for hammer prices but studio pottery is also sought after and designs by important makers can sell for thousands of pounds.
And there are few potters more important than Lucie Rie. Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1902, she fled to London in wartime and went on to change the landscape of ceramics in Britain. Her vision and inventiveness helped elevate pottery to the world of fine arts.
Her work has been described as cosmopolitan. It was certainly ahead of its time. It’s also gained respect all over the world. Her pottery is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the York Art Gallery in the UK, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, USA, and the Paisley Museum in Scotland.
Right now, some examples of her work are also on display in Hansons’ Derbyshire saleroom ahead of our December 1 Decorative Arts Auction. Items made by this legendary potter include a green bowl, guide price £1,800-£2,000, and a rustic brown pouring vessel and vase, each with an estimate of £800-£1,000.
Together they could make in excess of £4,000, such is the importance of Rie’s works. Her pottery has a gentle, modern, textured feel that would fit any interior. The beauty of good design is that it never dates. It lasts forever.
We’re privileged to handle these important pieces. Barry Jones, our ceramics expert, is a huge fan of Rie and studio pottery in general. When you work behind the scenes at Hansons, coming into contact with items like this really does make your day.
Rie influenced many during her 60-year career and developed inventive kiln processing. For example, she experimented with glazes and pushed the boundaries with her detailed, painterly designs.
Unlike most other potters of the period Rie’s works were fired only once, and the glaze was applied by brush when the clay was still raw and unfired. Not only did this make economic sense with only a single firing, it resulted in surfaces, textures and colours that appear more vivid and alive.
Lucie was the youngest child of Benjamin Gomperz, a Jewish doctor who was a consultant to Sigmund Freud. She studied pottery under Michael Powolny at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, a school of arts and crafts associated with the Wiener Werkstätte, in which she enrolled in 1922.
She was inspired by her uncle’s Roman pottery collection which had been excavated from the suburbs of Vienna. She set up her first studio in Vienna in 1925 and exhibited the same year at the Paris International Exhibition. She was influenced by Neoclassicism, Jugendstil, modernism, and Japonism.
In 1937, Rie won a silver medal at the Paris International Exhibition. She had her first solo show as a potter in 1949. But war clouds were gathering. In 1938, Rie fled Nazi Austria and emigrated to England, where she settled in London. Around this time, she separated from her husband Hans Rie, a businessman who she married in Vienna in 1926.
After the war, to make ends meet, she made ceramic buttons and jewellery for couture fashion outlets. Some of these are now displayed at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and as part of the Lisa Sainsbury Collection at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich.
In 1946, Rie hired Hans Coper, a young man with no experience in ceramics, to help her fire the buttons. Though Coper was interested in learning sculpture, she sent him to a potter named Heber Mathews, who taught him how to make pots on the wheel. Rie and Coper exhibited together in 1948. Coper became a partner in Rie’s studio, where he remained until 1958. Their friendship lasted until Coper’s death in 1981.
Rie was a friend of Bernard Leach, a leading figure in British studio pottery in the mid-20th century. She was impressed by his views, especially concerning the ‘completeness’ of a pot. But despite his influence, her brightly coloured, delicate, modernist pottery stands apart from Leach’s subdued, rustic, oriental work.
As well as continually making pottery, Rie taught at Camberwell College of Arts from 1960 until 1972. She received several awards for her work and exhibited with great success. Her most famous creations are vases, bottles and bowls, which drew some inspiration from Japan as well as many other places.
She stopped making pottery in 1990 after suffering the first of a series of strokes. She died at home in London in 1995, aged 93. A Blue plaque adorns her former home – 18 Albion Mews, Paddington, London. Such was her impact, her studio was moved and reconstructed in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
View the December 1 Decorative Arts Auction catalogue at www.hansonslive.co.uk – due live Nov 19. Entries invited for Hansons’ next Decorative Arts Auction. To book a free valuation, email [email protected] or call 01283 733988.
