A Tale of Two Ceramic Factories, with Dr Helen Walsh
Wednesday 17 June | 12-12:30pm  |  York Art Gallery
Included in General Admission  |  Book Tickets Here 

Join us for a talk exploring the lives of two remarkable ceramists who fled Nazi persecution during the Second World War and rebuilt their lives in Britain. Austrian potter Lucie Rie arrived in London as a refugee and, to make ends meet, established her Button Factory producing ceramic buttons. She would go on to become one of Britain’s most celebrated and influential studio potters. In Germany, Grete Marks had run a successful ceramics factory, producing and exporting modern tableware. She fled to Britain, after she was forced to sell her business to a member of the Nazi Party, where she struggled to adapt to the industrial factory system in Staffordshire.

Join ceramics curator Dr Helen Walsh as she explores the lives, work and resilience of these two extraordinary women, whose stories of creativity and survival left a lasting mark on British ceramics.