Rie, Dame Lucie

▪ 1996

      Austrian-born British studio potter (b. March 16, 1902, Vienna, Austria—d. April 1, 1995, London, England), created graceful, elegant domestic pottery characterized by minimal ornamentation and unique glazes in a wide range of vivid colours and textures. She was born Lucie Gomperz, the daughter of a prominent Viennese doctor who was a close friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She studied at the Vienna Arts and Crafts School and won awards across Europe for her richly textured earthenware pots. In 1938 she moved to Britain with her husband, Hans Rie. The marriage soon failed, however, and she established a private studio-workshop in London. Rie, who spurned the rustic and classical Oriental pottery styles that were popular at the time, supported herself during World War II by crafting ceramic buttons and jewelry. In the late 1940s she formed a lifelong partnership with a German-born ceramist, Hans Coper, and began experimenting with distinctive glazes fired in a high-temperature electric kiln. Rie's later stoneware and porcelain pieces, including tea sets, bowls, and vases, often commanded high prices, and many were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum and New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rie was the subject of a BBC television documentary in the early 1980s and was created Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1991.

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