Hans Coper - Design London Thursday, May 2, 2024 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private collection, Paris, acquired directly from the artist, Frome, 1974
    Thence by descent to the present owners, 1978

  • Literature

    Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, exh. cat., Gemeentemuseum Arnhem, Rotterdam, 1967, p. 30 for a similar example
    Collingwood | Coper, exh. cat., Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1969, pl. 19 for a similar example
    Tony Birks, Hans Coper, Catrine, 2013, pp. 38, 112, 114 for similar examples
    Hans Coper 100, exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2020, p. 32 for a similar example

  • 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

81

'Digswell' composite form

circa 1968
Stoneware, black glaze over an incised body.
24.5 cm (9 5/8 in.) high, 13 cm (5 1/8 in.) diameter
Underside impressed with artist's seal. Together with a copy of the original invoice.

Estimate
£30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠

Sold for £38,100

Contact Specialist

Antonia King
Head of Sale, Design
+44 20 7901 7944
Antonia.King@phillips.com
 

Design

London Auction 2 May 2024