Lucie Rie was born in 1902 in Vienna, where she studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule under Michael Powolny from 1922 to 1926. In 1938 she moved to London, where she lived from 1939 in Albion Mews. After the war she opened a pottery and button-making workshop where she was joined in 1946 by Hans Coper.

She taught at Camberwell School of Art from 1960 to 1971 and in 1969 received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art. She was awarded the OBE in 1968 and the CBE in 1981. She was created a Dame in 1991. She continued to work into her late eighties but after a series of strokes she was finally forced to stop working in 1990. Lucie Rie died at her home, 18 Albion Mews, on 1 April 1995.