David Sexton

The exquisite pottery of Lucie Rie

Her bowls and bottles show us a way of being in the world – not that she would have countenanced such twaddle

Clockwise from left: Lucie Rie’s ‘Vase’, 1970s, ‘Bowl’, 1971, and ‘Bowl’, c.1962 Credit: Clockwise from left: © Estate of Lucie Rie/Whitechapel Gallery/Stephen White Photography; Stokes Photo Ltd; Andrey Gertsev 
issue 18 March 2023

Lucie Rie had no time for high-flown talk about the art of ceramics. ‘I like to make pots – but I do not like to talk about them,’ she’d say. ‘I am not a thinker, I am not an art historian, I just do.’ It was her profession, she would maintain.

Rie’s work is astonishingly self-sufficient.

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