Offer Waterman, 17 St George Street, London (2026)

13/10/2026

We are delighted to be back at Frieze Masters this year – presenting a selection of the very best of Modern and Contemporary British Art, including Stanley Spencer’s 1935 masterwork ‘Washing Up’, formerly in the collection of Sir Kenneth Clark.

This intimate paining by one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated British artists elevates an everyday domestic art into a compelling tableau of unexpected monumentality. One of Spencer’s most ambitious domestic paintings, created at a decisive moment in his career, it brings to the kitchen interior the rigorous observation and stylised clarity that define his finest work.

The setting is the kitchen at Chapel View, the cottage in Burghclere built for Spencer and his first wife Hilda Carline by their patrons Louis and Mary Behrend, a short walk from the Sandham Memorial Chapel they had commissioned, which was completed in 1932. Whilst at Chapel View Spencer employed Elsie Munday as their maid, and she quickly assumed a central place within the household.

As Spencer wrote ‘[Washing Up] was the only painting I did at Burghclere that was directly inspired by & was the outcome of y life at Chapel View. It is a scene in the kitchen & Elsie was the mainspring of its inspiration. She used to sit the children when very small in the kitchen drawer so that they could watch her ironing, etc. I have memory drawings of her at her different occupations, chopping up wood, etc.’

To explore the full history of this breathtakingly beautiful painting be sure to visit Frieze Masters where the work will be on show until Sunday!

For more information and a full preview of the works we will be exhibiting do get in touch!

Frieze

12/10/2026

It’s official - Frieze week is finally here – and we are delighted to be presenting a selection of the best of Modern British Art at the fair this year – and our exhibition Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel remains open from Tuesday – Saturday this week. So if you are in town, be sure to stop by for a chance to see the first major showing of both artists side by side in London for almost thirty years!

Featuring over 200 works, the exhibition spans seven decades and offers an overview of the rich versatility offered by one of the earth’s most basic materials – clay.

Rie and Coper were both born outside of Britain, and as emigres both were forced to forge their own path, carving out a new space within the genre. While developing their own distinct aesthetic styles, their work remained inextricably linked by their biography and the twelve years they spent working together at 18 Albion Mews.

To accompany the exhibition we are delighted to have produced a new fully illustrated catalogue designed by A Practice for Everyday Life with photography of works by Sylvain Deleu essays by Tanya Harrod, Nigel Wood, Nigel Slater, Robin Cawdron-Stewart and Edmund de Waal

For more information, availability of works, or questions about visiting, be sure to get in touch!

📷 Hans Coper at Albion Mews, c.1956. Photograph © Estate of Jane Coper & The Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation
Hans Coper, Early footed pots, c.1952-3. Photograph by Sylvain Deleu
Interior or Albion Mews, with pots made for his one-man show at Primavera, London, 1958. Photograph © Estate of Jane Coper & The Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation
Lucie Rie, Large waisted vase, c.1960 and ‘Swan-neck’ vase, c.1958. Photograph by Sylvain Deleu
Lucie Rie on the wheel, c.1960. Photograph © Estate of Jane Coper & The Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation

10/10/2026

From 1946 to 1958 Lucie Rie and Hans Coper worked side by side at 18 Albion Mews, throwing on the wheel each day. This was a period of intense artistic production for both artists – exploring new forms, materials and surfaces, and creating some of their most artistically ambitious work.

Together they shared ideas, and this can be seen in many of the most original forms created by both artists during this period – such as this rare and early Composite form by Coper from c.1950 – which was clearly a form that also excited Lucie, who went on to produce a series of not dissimilar bottle vases with flattened sides, often thrown in parts.

Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel showcases many of these interrelated forms created by both artists, giving an insight into the creative ideas that flowed freely between these two masters of the medium.

For more information and for availability of works please do get in touch!

📷 Hans Coper, Early composite form, c.1950. Photograph by Sylvain Deleu
Works by Lucie Rie at Albion Mews, 1950s. Photograph © Estate of Jane Coper & The Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation Image Courtesy Crafts Study Centre

08/10/2026

Born in Vienna on 16 March 1920, Lucie Gomperz enjoyed a comfortable upbringing as the city bathed in the final golden years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Exposed to the arts from a young age, she attended the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, enrolling in 1922 to study sculpture, but soon switching to ceramics. As Rie’s first biographer, Tony Birks, wrote, ‘When she saw the potter’s wheel on the first day, in her own words she was “lost to it”.’

Her tutors included the architect and designer Josef Hoffmann and Michael Powolny, who ran the ceramics department and was famed for his rich, colourful glazing. While Hoffmann provided the aesthetic guidance, leaning into the hear to f Viennese modernism, Powolny’s teaching gave Lucie a grounding in the understanding of methods and materials.

Few works survive from her time in Vienna, and we are delighted to present eleven of these rare masterpieces within our current exhibition Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel – from one of the earliest known pieces by her, made in 1926 and gifted to a fellow student at the Kunstgewerbeschule, through to her 1928 Teapot Made of Ernst Plischke, the architect and designer that fitted out her Vienna apartment, and even pots carefully packed by Rie in her suitcase when she fled Austria for England in 1938.

For a chance to see these early works alongside later pieces by both Rie and Coper be sure to catch the exhibition before it closes at the end of October!

Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel – Open Tuesday – Saturday until 30 October

📷 Vienna period pots, c.1934-6. Photograph by Sylvain Deleu
Lucie Rie (Rie-Gompertz) at the wheel in Vienna. Image courtesy Crafts Study Centre
Vienna period pots, c.1932-6. Photograph by Sylvain Deleu
Rie-Gompertz at the wheel, 1935. Image courtesy Crafts Study Centre

06/10/2026

One of the highlights of working on our current exhibition Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel is the opportunity to showcase lesser known or rarely used photographs of the artists in their studio and at work.

We loved this wonderful photograph of Hans Coper in Albion Mews from the early 1950s – sourced from the rich archives of Ceramic Review – the leading studio ceramics publication, founded by potters Emmanuel Cooper and Eileen Lewinstein – and this equally beautiful photograph of Lucie Rie taken by an unknown photographer at Albion Mews in March 1989, held within fantastic collection of Crafts Study Centre

Throughout the research process for this exhibition, we have found hundreds of images, many never published before – and the hope is that in time more and more will reach the public domain!

Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel runs at Offer Waterman until 30 October.

For more information or to purchase a copy of the exhibition catalogue, do get in touch!

03/10/2026

Being exhibited for the very first time in public we are delighted to present Lucie Rie’s Vase from the Black Firing of 1981 – a piece with almost mythic status within the oeuvre of the artist.

As Rie’s first biographer, Tony Birks, wrote ‘A curious kiln event had given Lucie a forewarning of Hans’ death. Opening a kiln in early May that year [1981], Lucie was horrified to find that all her pots were black, unlike anything she had ever made before. She could think of no technical reason at the time for this sombre firing … Knowing Hans was very ill, she had gone straight to Frome and had stayed with him until a few days before he died.’

Very few pieces exist from this firing – and the present example was gifted by Rie to her close friend Cyril Frankel. We are delighted to be showing it here alongside another work formerly in Frankel’s collection – his famous white composite vase, referred to by Lucie as his ‘God pot’.

The story goes that walking in to her studio one morning Frankel saw this captivating white composite form, and declared to Lucie ‘You’ve done it - you have achieved next to godliness!’

For a chance to see these works in person – together with many more – visit the exhibition Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel – open until 30 October!

Or for more information, including the availability of works for sale, please do get in touch!

📷 Photography of works by Sylvain Deleu

01/10/2026

As we roll into October, we continue to celebrate the mastery of Lucie Rie and Hans Coper here at the gallery with our exhibition Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel – a comprehensive overview of the career of both makers, spanning seven decades and including over 200 works.

Whilst together they spent their lives at the wheel, throwing each day – countless hours were also spent by both artists in their studios, sketching, planning, kneading clay, mixing glazes and finishing fired works.

These two photographs – both taken by Jane Coper – give an insight into the business of their studio lives. Taken around 1958 at his studio at Digswell, we see Coper sketching forms that would be later worked up on the wheel. Towards the end of his life Coper insisting on destroying his papers – including letters, writings and sketches – leaving very little aside the staggering body of finished works that today are testament to his incredible artistic vision.

In the second of these photographs, we see Lucie Rie at work in her studio at 18 Albion Mews. In the foreground we see a gathering of tall bottle vases, and on the shelves in the background raw glaze ingredients and a smattering of finished pieces – including some of her famous domestic wares from the 1950s and ‘60s.

For an opportunity to see Rie’s studio recreated in all its glory, head to the Victoria and Albert Museum to their wonderful ceramics gallery, where following the artist’s death in 1995 her studio was preserved and recreated, together with her kick-wheel, glaze pots, brushes and examples of her finished pieces.

Lucie Rie / Hans Coper : Life at the Wheel runs at Offer Waterman, 17 St George Street until 30 October. For more information do get in touch!

📷 Hans Coper in his Digswell studio, c.1958.
Lucie Rie at Albion Mews c.1967
Photograph © Estate of Jane Coper & The Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation

29/09/2026

‘I wish I could have time to make teapots again – and tableware. They are really more difficult than anything else.’

In 1982 Lucie Rie wrote to a collector reminiscing about her domestic wares of the 1950s and early ‘60s, and the important role that this had in her artistic development. These works were designed to be used every day and still are by some collectors.

In his essay for the catalogue of Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel writes about the beauty of these ‘everyday pieces that I shall rescue from life in a glass case, to use them as they were meant to be used. They were made to be cooking in and eaten from, to hold cool milk or wildflowers, to be a working part of a home’

To read Nigel’s article in full head to our website or get in touch for more information!

Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel – open Tuesdays – Saturdays at Offer Waterman, 17 St George Street until 30th October

📷 Photography by Sylvain Deleu

26/09/2026

One of most prominent design techniques within the work of Lucie Rie and Hans Coper is that of sgraffito – the ancient technique that brought surfaces to life.

Around 1948 Rie and Coper toured the West Country with the photographer Stella Sneed. Here they visited the museum in Avebury, housing one of the most important prehistoric archaeological collections in the country and saw first-hand the technique of sgraffito within ceramics. Ancient beakers that were finely incised using small bird bones captured the imagination of both artists. While for Rie the sgraffito manifested itself in the form of fine, precise decoration, either scratching through a glaze to reveal the surface below or scratching into a surface and in-filling with a different coloured oxide, for Coper such techniques took on a more calligraphic quality. He produced bowls with sweeping designs that were highly painterly in approach and comparable to the work of Marino Marini.

Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel features some of the earliest examples of sgraffito within the work of both artists – and included within the more than 200 works featured are two bowls from the 1950s – this impressive early squared bowl from c.1951, which was last shown in London in the 1997 Barbican Art Gallery exhibition – and a smaller squared bowl also stamped by both artists from 1957. These two works chart the evolution of this precise and fine technique, creating surfaces that set the work of Rie and Coper apart within the contemporary ceramics scene of the time.

For more information on these works for sale or any other pieces featured in the show, please do get in touch!

Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel runs until 30 October at Offer Waterman

📷 Lucie Rie and Hans Coper at the wheel, 1950s. Photograph courtesy Ceramic Review
Works by Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, photography by Sylvain Deleu

24/09/2026

In gathering works for our current exhibition Lucie Rie/Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel we have been lucky to discover a rich array of pieces with fascinating provenance. The work of Lucie Rie and Hans Coper has always been highly prized and collected by museum, patrons, artists and collectors all across the world.

This is one such work – formerly in the collection of the British designer Sir Terence Conran. Shown in Lucie Rie’s 1992 Crafts Council retrospective, the work truly sings with a rich, soft blue glaze, topped by a luscious wrinkled bronze rim.

As Conran recalled in a 2009 interview with the The Wall Street Journal ‘I got very interested in making pottery and ceramics and had a potter’s wheel and a kiln in my parent’s garden. I started collecting ceramics and also glass objects’ – later recalling in The Telegraph ‘I am a great admirer of Lucie Rie’s pottery, and bought this from David [Queensberry], the most acute ceramic collector in London.’

For a chance to see this, and other works with amazing histories behind them, be sure to visit the exhibition, open until 30 October.

For more information do get in touch!

📷 Lucie Rie, Large blue bowl, c.1980. Photograph by Sylvain Deleu
Terence Conran being interviewed about the life and work of Lucie Rie
Lucie Rie photographed at the opening of her Crafts Council Retrospective in 1992 - image courtesy Crafts Study Centre

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