HANS COPER (1920-1981)

Hans Coper in his studio, photograph by Jane Coper

Hans Coper was born in Chemnitz (now Karl-Marx-Stadt) on 8 April 1920, and his family lived in Reichenbach, Dresden and Leipzig. In 1939 he left Germany and came to England as a refugee.

In 1946 he met Lucie Rie and began to work at the Albion Mews Pottery. He became a British Subject in 1958, and the following year he moved to Digswell, Hertfordshire, where he was one of the founder members of the architectural group there.

During the 1960s he made two large murals composed of ceramic discs and designed a wide range of ceramic claddings. In 1960 he started teaching at Camberwell School of Art and in 1966 at the Royal College of Art, having returned to London in 1963. In 1967 he moved to Frome, Somerset, where he died in 1981.