Symposium - Hans Coper: New Contexts, New Approaches

In 2027, Kettle’s Yard will stage a major exhibition of the work of studio potter Hans Coper (1920-1981). Coper was born in Chemnitz, Germany and studied textile engineering in Dresden in the late 1930s before emigrating to Britain in 1939. In England in 1940, Coper was arrested as an enemy alien and sent to Canada. He returned in 1941 and afterwards served in the Non-Combatant Corps of the British Army. In 1946 he met fellow émigré Lucie Rie, and began work at her London studio, where he quickly learnt how to create wheel-based pottery. In addition to collaborative and commercial work, both Coper and Rie began to produce work for exhibition. In 1959 Coper moved into a new studio space at Digswell House, near to Welwyn Garden City, which had been converted to artist studios and living spaces by the Digswell Art Trust, set up by Henry Morris (the former Chief Education Officer for Cambridgeshire). During this period, Coper accepted architectural commissions alongside his work for exhibitions

In 1963 Coper moved to West London, later settling in Frome, Somerset, where he spent the rest of his life. His work was shown often from the mid-1950s, in London at William Ohly’s Berkeley Gallery and Henry Rothschild’s Primavera Gallery, and in joint exhibitions at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (with Lucie Rie) in 1967, the Victoria & Albert Museum (with Peter Collingwood) in 1969 and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg (with Lucie Rie) in 1972. Over many decades Coper pursued variations on a small group of forms, summarised by Alison Britton as, ‘thistles, sacks, spades, pestles, hourglasses, arrowheads, axheads, eggs and buds’. Larger commissions include monumental candlesticks for Coventry Cathedral. Coper taught at the Camberwell School of Art from 1961, and at the Royal College of Art from 1966, where his students included Alison Britton, Elizabeth Fritsch and Jacqueline Poncelet. Coper’s wife, the photographer Jane (née Gate) (1932-2022) documented their life together from the mid-1950s onwards, recording the processes and environments in which she and Coper worked in Digswell, London and Frome.

• The galleries, where exhibitions are shown, and all areas of the Clore Learning Studio (level -1), the Research Space (level 1) and the Ede Room (level 2) are fully accessible.
• We have wheelchair accessible toilets on the lower ground (level -1), ground and first floor (level 1).
• There is a lift giving access to all floors located past the galleries, just beside the Clore Learning Studio on the ground floor.
• Kettle’s Yard welcomes assistance and service dogs in all areas.
• We have large-print versions of the wall text available.
• We can lend visitors small folding seats for taking around exhibitions or using at non-seated events. Please ask a Visitor Assistant for help finding a seat.

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