adapted from The New York Times

    Known in the Netherlands as the van Gogh of potters, Lea Halpern liked simple shapes and complex surfaces. She considered herself to be an artist and never intended her pots to be used. She gave them names like ''Rainy Day'', ''Black-Eyed Daisy'', ''Comet'' and ''Spider's Web.'' Schooled in painting, modeling and ceramics in Vienna, she worked in Gouda, the Netherlands, until World War II, experimenting with glazes, special effects and innovative pigments. The quality of her work was recognized early; both Queen Emma and Princess Juliana bought work at her first show in 1931. The following year the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam gave her a one-woman show and bought some vases.

    Her work has great variety; while the shapes are classic (like Shang bronzes), the textures vary from satin smooth to eggshell to lava. The palette is often wild: turquoise with splashes of purple, or orange with gold. Subtle shades like pale green celadon often have the crackled surface of ancient Chinese ware. The pieces beg to be touched.

    In 1939 Lea Halpern was offered a show at Holland House in Rockefeller Center, which she accepted. She was so concerned about shipping her works that she sailed with the collection on the liner S.S. Rotterdam. She planned to return home, but the outbreak of war made it impossible. Lea Halpern decided to remain in the United States permanently, marrying and settling outside of Baltimore, where she continued to work until 1976/80. She died in 1985 in Manchester (UK).

    In 1974 the Frans Halsmuseum in Haarlem had a Halpern show; in 1976 the Baltimore Museum of Art had one. The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have collected her pottery. R. L. Hobson, former curator of ceramics at the British Museum, called her ''a rare flower in this mechanical age.''