In September 1938, the Austrian potter Lucie Rie arrived in a London soon to be ravaged by German bombings. She was fleeing a country that had become unsafe for Jewish people like herself dramatically fast. Only a short time prior, she had enjoyed a glittering career, winning awards for her minimal tea-sets, bowls and cylindrical vessels that were popular with avant-garde architects of the day. However, her success on the continent counted for little in Britain. She encountered indifference and incomprehension, with the UK’s leading potter Bernard Leach describing her work as ‘too thickly glazed, thinly potted, too much like stoneware […] with no humanity.’[1] She made a living by hand-making buttons: a far cry from her earlier life.
Yet despite this difficult period, what followed was a highly successful 60-year career, during which Rie continually explored and evolved ceramic forms, glazes and surfaces. My book Lucie Rie (out with Eiderdown Books, September 2022), ranges from her earliest beginnings in 1920s Vienna, to her flight as a refugee from the Nazis, button-making in wartime London, and the dazzling career and international fame that followed during the ensuing decades. Her lifetime coincided with great changes not only in Europe’s politics, but in the practise and conception of ceramic art.
In 1922, when she began potting at Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule – a vocational school that taught arts and crafts – women were far more likely to decorate wares in industrial settings than set up their own independent studios as artist-potters. By the end of her life, Rie had become an icon of studio pottery, garlanded with awards including an OBE, a CBE and an honorary doctorate, and her work highly sought-after. Today, her collectors include the fashion designer Jonathan Anderson, the cook and writer Nigel Slater, and the broadcaster David Attenborough – whose 1982 BBC documentary on the potter is now shown in the ceramics galleries of the V&A.
Nevertheless, though Rie is much-loved by ceramic art aficionados, she is less well-known to an art-loving audience. Though many books on Rie already exist (certainly by the standards of the pottery world), these are largely cumbersome monographs. They are dated, both in terms of photographic quality, design and, to varying degrees, in their editorial approach. One of the best-known, Lucie Rie (1987) by Tony Birks, begins with the statement: ‘Lucie Rie’s artistic achievement is closely related to the encouragement and personal inspiration provided by a series of men.’[2] Ascribing her singular success in such a way fails to do justice to Rie’s singularly driven and independent spirit.
It’s this spirit, in part, that led me to pen this book – and to place it in Eiderdown’s ‘Modern Women Artists’ series, which is designed to shine a light on female talent from the first half of the twentieth century. My application for the Women’s History Network grant was also driven by the desire to create something that would match the experience of seeing her pots in person: meaning that the choice of images took on an additional importance. Thanks to the image license grants from the WHN and the Craft Potter’s Charitable Trust, the pocket-sized hardback features 30 high quality, full-colour reproductions of pieces sourced from public art galleries, private collections and auctioneers. I hope it does justice to Rie.
In telling her story, I also wanted to put lesser-known aspects of her oeuvre in the spotlight: namely, the buttons. When reviewing an exhibition at the Centre of Ceramic Art, York, that included these – a rarity – for Apollo in 2018, I described them as ‘tactile, charming things – miniature wearable sculptures, as captivating as finely carved jewels’, before asking ‘Why should a button be any less worthy than a teacup?’ The question still bears repeating. By dedicating attention to these tiny treasures, and to other objects such as her umbrella handles, doorknobs and jewellery, I wanted to tell the whole story of Rie’s rise to fame – including this rather less glamorous grind, with which she made ends meet.
Today, Britain’s role in welcoming refugees from war-torn Europe (or failing to welcome them, as the case may be) is once again of vital importance. In this context, celebrating the great cultural contribution made by émigrés – including this greatest of potters – matters more than ever.
Isabella Smith first began working with ceramic art as a research assistant for a private collection of British studio pottery spanning the period from 1890 to the present day. After a master’s degree in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art that focused on the use of clay in 1970s feminist performance art, she became an assistant editor: first at Ceramic Review magazine, and then at the Crafts Council’s magazine, Crafts, where she is now deputy editor. She also writes for publications including Apollo, ArtReview, Frieze, The Guardian, World of Interiors and The Times Literary Supplement.
[1] Emmanuel Cooper, Lucie Rie: Modernist Potter (New Haven and London
2012), p.119
[2] Tony Birks, Lucie Rie (Catrine 1987, this edition 2017), p.7
