Hans Coper - Design Masters New York Tuesday, December 13, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Exhibited

    “Lucie Rie/Hans Coper,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 15, 1994–May 21, 1995; “Hans Coper Retrospective: Innovation in 20th-Century Ceramics,” The Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo, September 12–November 29, 2009, then traveled to: The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shiga (March 13–June 17, 2010), Panasonic Electric Works, Shiodome Museum, Tokyo (June 26–September 5, 2010), Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu (September 18–November 23, 2010), Iwate Museum of Art, Iwate (December 4, 2010–February 13, 2011), and Shizuoka City Museum of Art, Shizuoka (April 9–June 26, 2011)

  • Literature

    John P. O’Neill, ed., Lucie Rie/Hans Coper, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994, p. 19, fig. C74; Maya Nishi, ed., Hans Coper Retrospective: Innovation in 20th-Century Ceramics, exh. cat., The Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo, 2009, illustrated p. 111, fig. 95

  • Artist Biography

    Hans Coper

    German • 1920 - 1981

    Hans Coper learned his craft in the London studio of Lucie Rie, having emigrated from Germany as a young Jewish engineering student in 1939. He initially assisted Rie in the studio with the ceramic buttons she made for the fashion industry, as well as ceramic tableware, but soon Coper was producing his own work. By 1951 he had received considerable recognition exhibiting his pots in the "Festival of Britain." 

     

    Coper favored compound shapes that, while simple in appearance, were in fact complex in construction. Similar to the making of Joseon Dynasty Moon Jars (Rie in fact displayed a Moon Jar in the studio), he would build his vessels by bringing several thrown forms together, for example joining bowls rim to rim. Coper eschewed glazes and preferred the textured surfaces achieved through the application of white and black slips, evoking the abraded texture of excavated vessels. This interest in ancient objects was very much in step with other modernists of his time—Coper admired Constantin Brancusi and Alberto Giacometti and his textured markings have been compared to sculptors such as William Turnbull.

     

    In the last phase of his career, Coper reduced the scale of his work creating small "Cycladic" pots that stood on pedestals or drums, recalling the clay figures of Bronze Age Greece. 

    View More Works

54

White “Cycladic” pot

ca. 1977
Stoneware, layered white porcelain slips and engobes over a body with textured and incised linear designs.
10 1/8 in. (25.7 cm.) high
Impressed with artist's seal.

Estimate
$25,000 - 35,000 

Sold for $30,000

Design Masters

13 December 2011
New York