Craft Study Centre, Farnham, Surrey.

The Refuge Series was made in response to objects in the Craft Study Centre Collection; to a series of tiny pots used as glaze tests made by Lucie Rie.

Amongst these was a small, porcelain vase with simple vertical lines draw into the glaze.
‘this delicate drawing was less decoration than a means of exposing the structure…. cages of sgraffito, a trellis that simultaneously defined and exposed the volume of Rie’s pots’
(Clarke, 1995:171).

Responding to her use of sgraffito through a manganese glaze, lines painted or sgraffitoed onto the surfaces of fence poles created a further layering of reference. Boundaries. Borders. Barriers. Barricades.

These small-scale sculptures, resembling fences or figures huddled together speak of the movement of people, displacement and dis-belonging.

WW II. 1939–1945
In 1938 Lucie Rie, a Jewish emigrant, fled Nazi Austria for London.

Clarke, Garth (1995) The Potter’s Art: A Complete History of Pottery In Britain. Phaidon

Images of Lucie Rie’s work