Dame Lucie Rie, DBE (16 March 1902 – 1 April 1995) (German pronunciation: [lʊtsiː ʀiː])[1] was an Austrian-born, independent, British studio potter.

[9] In 1938, Rie fled Nazi Austria and emigrated to England, where she settled in a small mews house in London where she lived and had her studio for the rest of her life.

[12] In 1946, Rie hired Hans Coper,[13] a fellow emigre, a young man with no experience in ceramics, to help her fire the buttons.

Although Coper was interested in learning sculpture, she sent him to a potter named Heber Mathews, who taught him how to make pots on the wheel.

Rie's small studio was at 18 Albion Mews, a narrow street of converted stables near Hyde Park in London.

Rie was a friend of Bernard Leach, one of the leading figures in British studio pottery in the mid-20th century, and she was impressed by his views, especially concerning the "completeness" of a pot.

[15] But despite his transient influence, her brightly coloured, delicate, modernist pottery stands apart from Leach's subdued, rustic, oriental work.

There are other works such as buttons, which she bequeathed to her close friend the Japanese designer Issey Miyake[16][17] and bowls including her own egg cup which she gave to the publisher Susan Shaw.