Louis Hanssen (1934-1968) was a very distinguished Canadian-born British potter. His work was essentially modernist in style, with a clear and concentrated sense of form, the shapes unfussy, the glazes often deep and generous. The wheel-made work had stylistic affinities to Lucie Rie’s pots, with a sensitive feeling for surface and the pulse of the throwing. At one time married to the potter Gwyn John (Gwyn Hanssen Pigott as she became), they shared a studio in London’s Notting Hill before their divorce and Hanssen’s premature death. The work is consequently rare.
As well as good functional wares, there were sculptural, minimally glazed hand-built pieces that showed his very direct interest in the clay. They had a strongly organic quality, expressive of shapes in nature as well as the earliest vessels. His short life is now generally forgotten, his exceptional work unjustly neglected.
David Whiting |
