Gerd knapper biography sampler

Gerd Knäpper
German studio potter resident in Japan

Gerd Knäpper's story is truly an amazing one. Knäpper studied in Germany with Host Kerstan and in Japan with Seisei Suzuki.

In , he moved to the Japanese pottery town of Mashiko, building the first foreign owned workshop there.

Gerd knapper biography sampler

In he moved to Daigo, north of Mashiko.

In , after having lived and worked in Japan for only two 30 months, he was awarded the Grand Prize for Traditional Japanese Ceramics at the First National Competition in Tokyo, stunning the Japanese pottery community.

In he won the Prime Minister's Award at the Japan Contemporary Crafts Association exhibition. In he was awarded the Order of Merit by the German government in recognition of his achievements in ceramics and in bringing together East and West.

In his pottery, Knäpper blends German and Japanese aesthetics. His wheel-thrown pottery is carved, fluted, scratched and glazed, then wood-fired in a traditional Japanese k