A version of the following text by Peter Collingwood first appeared in Crafts magazine, issue 54, January 1982. The last paragraph was written by the author for this exhibition.

When Digswell House was turned into flats and workshops for artists and craftspeople in 1958, Hans Coper was the first potter and I was the first weaver there; so for several years we lived in proximity. His slightly bent, stiff-necked, figure (the result, he said, of being forced to dig trenches,when he first came here and was classed as an enemy alien) was a familiar sight as he drove his old black taxi out of the grounds or walked up to the main part of Digswell House to collect his weekly delivery of coffee.He was a very private self-contained person and to knock at his door just for idle chatter seemed an impossible intrusion. Yet once this, perhaps imaginary, barrier had been overcome, he was friendly and charming,making self-mocking remarks in his deep attractive voice.

Seeing a large salt-glazed sewer pipe, which I had used as a loudspeaker cabinet, he said, "What's the good of my making pots - I'll never make anything as perfect as that." At that time he gave up throwing for two years, in order to design extruded tiles and later hand basins for an industrial firm.He gave me a prototype hand basin and liked my idea that it would be signed by the letters on the Hot and Cold taps.

He more or less lived in his workshop; his so-called living quarters appeared to be a mattress on the floor of an otherwise empty room. This combination of simple living and hard concentrated work suggests a coldness. But I remember him coming to my door,very concerned about a kitten he was carrying. It had a small boil,and knowing my medical past, he wanted advice. Incidentally, when he had a similar infection on his lip, he waited until his face was horribly swollen and distorted before asking if I could help him.

He was always very modest about his work, even self-depreciative, giving his pottery shapes joke names, like "the field marshal" and "my balancing act". But I think he really knew his worth.He once spoke to me in some agitation, concerning an exhibition we both had been invited to take part in; he just did not want his things to be shown in that company.

This seriousness and purity of approach could be almost shaming to other craftsmen, making their work suddenly appear to them as trivial and superficial. It was not a simple purity achieved by exclusion, such as would be seen in the throwing of unadorned, perfectly cylindrical, pots. It was a complex purity,which resulted from the filtering of every practical decision through his exceptional and critical mind; every shape was drawn and redrawn, tried and then repeatedly refined.Though he had never aimed at self-expression, his work expresses a consistent and powerful self, and so is immediately recognisable. Its authority, presence and beauty (I want to use the word "timeless," but Hans would have hated and mocked that cliché), is undeniable and will always transcend changing tastes.

Respecting his work to such an extent, I was perhaps most influenced by him when I spent a year preparing for our joint exhibition at the V & A. I was conscious that everything I wove was to be seen with his pots, in fact would be measured against them. I knew that the slightest descent into sentimentality, prettiness or facileness would leap out at the viewer in that context. So, though I normally try to avoid such qualities, I was especially careful on this occasion and often rejected ideas as being sub-Coper. This epitomises to me the importance of Hans Coper's work; that by its powerful example it can make others strive to improve, to go deeper, to refine, and not strain after innovation or adjust without reason to current fashions.

Any ending is sad, but that such a talent should be cut off too soon and in such a way makes one want to weep. What he must have gone through as a cruel disease slowly stole his strength and control is difficult to imagine. But when at one point I suggested he applied for assistance, being specially offered to ill craftsmen, his immediate reaction was, "No; there must be many far worse off than me. "The process seemed incurable, occasional news reached one, but it was never cheering. The deterioration went on with a gradual inevitability and must have been unbearable to watch for those who loved him.

Worldwide exhibitions have now given us a more complete view of Hans' amazing output which is almost daunting. But though there is little hope of measuring up to his clear-cut controlled creativity, it does make the greater his enduring ability to act as a censor of banality,a silent ever-present critic, and above all gives encouragement to cling resolutely to principles, which tend to slip through ageing fingers!

Peter Collingwood

Peter Collingwood