Hans Coper - Design London Tuesday, September 23, 2014 | Phillips

Design

London 24 September 2014 2pm

  • Exhibited

    'Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel', Barbican Centre, London, February-May 1997

  • Literature

    Margot Coatts, ed., Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1997, p. 134, cat. 4.17
    Tony Birks, Hans Coper, Yeovil, 2005, illustrated p. 93

  • 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. 

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PROPERTY FROM A LONDON COLLECTOR

225

Hans Coper

Large bowl

circa 1955
Stoneware, the exterior with layered white porcelain slips and engobes, the interior with manganese glaze revealing a white linear design beneath.
37.5 cm (14 3/4 in.) diameter
Impressed with artist’s seal.

Estimate
£30,000 - 40,000 ♠

Sold for £86,500

Contact Specialist
Ben Williams
bwilliams@phillips.com
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Design

London 24 September 2014 2pm