Lucie Rie: The Adventure of Pottery

at the Holburne Museum, Bath, 

14 July 2023 – 7 January 2024 

The idea for ‘An Elemental August’ comes from Lucie Rie as much as any of the other women I will be talking about this month. One of the 20th Century’s most important and influential potters, her work is made from the very earth, and brought to perfection - in a kiln - by fire. Water is also essential to their manufacture, as is the air – particularly when the complexity of some of her glazes is considered. 

Born in Vienna and emigrating to England in 1938, it took a while for her to recapture early success in Austria as a result of the war – but her determination, practicality and constant experimentation led to a career which flourished from the 1950s onwards as her ceramics developed from a functional basis – always holding on to an exquisite aesthetic sensibility – towards ever increasing degrees of delicacy, elegance and sophistication. 

I saw the exhibition at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, although it had previously been seen in the North East, at the Middlesbrough Institute for Modern Art. After its enormous success at these two venues, it will find a third home in Bath over the Summer and Autumn. 

In this talk we will explore the full range of her work, looking at her technique, the materials she used, and the wide range of effects she could deploy to create objects of a rare and surprising beauty.