VICTORIA, BC.- How incredibly compelling a conversation with famed potter Lucie Rie would have been! Rie, whose life story is as awe-inspiring as her work, is being celebrated at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria with the exhibition, Conversations with Lucie Rie.

One of the most influential potters of the 20th century, Rie achieved damehood in 1991, and is renowned for her modernist aesthetic of spare lines and textured surfaces. Her career spanned seven decades during the 20th century and culminated in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1994 to 1995—the year of her death. Rie was born in Vienna in 1902, and she was forced to leave behind a burgeoning arts career when she fled from the Nazis in 1938 to England. In London, Rie re-established herself through her own artistic language and studio at Albion Mews.

“The exhibition considers the development of Rie’s work and the impact she had on her contemporaries and subsequent generations of artists, curators, collectors, and admirers,” says the exhibition’s curator, Toby Lawrence. “It also highlights the friendships and dialogue she established through her practice as a studio potter.”

“The Gallery is extremely fortunate to have 19 of Lucie Rie’s pieces in our collection,” continues Lawrence. All but one of the works were donated by British Columbia resident Nedra Jane Paul (nee Ginty, 1920-90), a teacher who purchased the pieces from a 1967 seminal retrospective exhibition of Rie’s work. Also on exhibit from the AGGV’s collection is a pot by Hans Coper, Rie’s cherished friend and studio assistant from 1947-1958, and two works by renowned British potter Bernard Leach, with whom Rie studied.

As well as including works by Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, and Bernard Leach, the exhibition features two contemporary works, a collage portrait titled Dame Lucie Rie by the late Canadian artist, Stephen Andrews, as well as a video of the performance Lucie Rie vs. Grindcore by British multi-disciplinary artist Keith Harrison.