Lucie Rie

The market for Lucie Rie ceramics continues to reach new heights.

Phillips’ sale of two studio pottery collections of Lucie Rie and Hans Coper lived up to expectations and set two new auction records.

What has been billed by Phillips as ‘the most exceptional and significant group of works by Lucie Rie and Hans Coper to ever come to auction’ will be offered in London on November 1.

Stand-out original among the 76 pieces from Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson’s workshops offered at Tennants’ (22% buyer’s premium) 20th Century Design auction was a carved oak monk sold with its working drawing.

The standout signature to an autograph album compiled by a boy scout in 1919 was that of Lawrence of Arabia.

Two moulds for making buttons, given by studio potter Lucie Rie (1902-95) to her cleaning lady, were sold at a London auction on March 29.

Ceramics by Hans Coper (1920-81) and Lucie Rie (1902-95) have been assimilated into the collecting sphere of Modern British art with spectacular effect.

A summer Design and Modern sale at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) included a small collection of ceramics by Dame Lucie Rie (1902- 95).

Two November sales underlined the current strength of the field of British studio pottery.

Specialist Philip Smith, head of the 20th Century & Modern British Art departments at the London outlet of Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium), believes studio ceramics should be classed as art.

Modern British ceramics are rarely offered by German auction houses. Among the notable exceptions is the Kunst & Design Auktionshaus Schops Turowski, based in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia.

If the work of the best modern and contemporary artists is typically confined to a small coterie of London auctioneers, then the same cannot be said of the best modern and contemporary ceramics.

British studio pottery, once the preserve of a small number of devotees, currently ranks among the strongest subsets of the art and antiques market. In the first element of a two-part feature, ATG considers the London market.

The ‘British’ studio ceramics movement has long been backed by overseas talent. In addition to Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Ruth Duckworth (nee Windmuller), who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, and Hamada Shoji’s collaboration with Bernard Leach, is the contribution of Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo (b. 1950).

‘More affordable’ Lucie Rie lots head a selection of hammer highlights from summer sales.