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Mary Scheier | Potter, 99

Mary Scheier, 99, a pioneer of the modern studio pottery movement who was known for the lightness of her forms, died Monday in Green Valley, Ariz.

Mary Scheier, 99, a pioneer of the modern studio pottery movement who was known for the lightness of her forms, died Monday in Green Valley, Ariz.

Her death was announced by Susan Strickler, a friend and the director of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H., which exhibits the personal collection of Mrs. Scheier and her husband, Edwin.

Mrs. Scheier threw very thin yet utilitarian pots, which she complemented with simple glazes, thus enhancing the elegant vessels.

Mrs. Scheier was born Mary Goldsmith in Salem, Va., and moved to New York in 1925. She was the director of federally sponsored art centers in Big Stone Gap and Abingdon, Va., when she met her husband in 1937. They married that August and traveled the country as puppeteers until 1939, when they settled in Glade Spring, Va., and set up their first studio.

Mrs. Scheier's works are on display at museums around the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Craft Museum in New York, and the University of New Hampshire Special Collections. Her husband survives her. - N.Y. Times News Service