Lucie Rie | Items for sale, auction results & history

Lucie Rie was one of the most influential ceramicists of the 20th century, celebrated for her bowls, vases, teapots and buttons. With her refined forms and experimental glazes, Rie brought a Modernist approach to British studio ceramics.

Born Lucie Gomperz in Vienna in 1902, she grew up in a Jewish family. Early exposure to her uncle’s collection of Roman pottery sparked Rie’s lifetime interest in form and material. She initially wanted to be a sculptor before shifting to ceramics, noting, ‘But when first I saw a pottery wheel, I decided at once to become a potter.’

The artist began her formal training at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts), graduating in 1926. She went on to establish her own pottery studio in Vienna, with her early works utilising a raw-glazed style which created a textured surface to her ceramics. The artist won several prestigious prizes for her artwork throughout the 1930s, including a silver medal at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition.

In 1938, Rie was forced to flee Nazi Austria and emigrate to London. Here, she established a studio at Albion Mews that became her creative home for over five decades. During the war, Rie made ceramic buttons and jewellery for haute couture houses to earn an income — this practice deepened her fascination with glaze precision and colour nuance.

In 1946, Rie began working with ceramicist Hans Coper and returned to making pots and vessels. Together, Rie and Coper exhibited in London, with their work diverging from contemporaries such as Bernard Leach — whereas Leach’s work drew on rural and Japanese traditions, Rie’s aesthetic took a more urban and Modernist approach, with elegant proportions and a refined simplicity.

Rie became more established in England over the following decades, with her ceramics being celebrated for their delicate features and sgraffito decoration (where layered colours are revealed through fine lines scratched into the surface). The artist once said, ‘To make pots is an adventure to me, every new work is a new beginning. Indeed I shall never cease to be a pupil.’

After 1967, Rie began to exhibit consistently both nationally and internationally, and she was made a Dame in 1991. Alongside her career as a ceramicist, Rie also became a teacher, lecturing at Camberwell College of Arts from 1960 to 1971.

Rie died in London in 1995, leaving behind a body of work which had transformed the landscape of studio ceramics in Britain. Her pieces can be found in major collections worldwide, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.