To look at a Lucie Rie ceramic is to see a new beginning; in every glaze, shape and incision is the search for a fresh perspective. Rie once said: “To make pottery is an adventure to me, every new work is a new beginning.” Over her 60-year career, Rie kept finding novel ways to experiment with aesthetics and form. That quote is the inspiration for the title of Lucie Rie: the Adventure of Pottery, at Kettle’s Yard, and with more than 100 of Rie’s pieces it fully exemplifies how her commitment to beginnings ensured her body of work was always evolving.
Starting anew was not just a creative endeavour but a personal one. Rie had to begin again when she arrived in London in 1938 from Vienna, fleeing the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Despite being a successful ceramicist in Austria, the 36-year-old was unknown in Britain and her style differed from that of Bernard Leach, the main pottery tastemaker at the time. However, Rie was not an artist troubled by the presence of other skilled crafts people with different approaches. She positioned herself as student, absorbing their styles to see how they flourished under her own hand.
