The Gallery at The Arc, Winchester
22 January – 24 March 2025
In 2025, The Gallery at The Arc in Winchester will host a unique exhibition with all three murals made by celebrated studio potter Hans Coper (1920-1981) – the only three he made in his lifetime – being brought together on public display for the first and only time.
Hans Coper: Resurface will feature three murals that were all previously displayed in private UK locations: a Winchester military base, a Yorkshire secondary school and the entrance to a London office.
The exhibition will also feature over 20 of the artist’s famous pots, and will include items that have rarely, if ever, been on public display before, such as clay prints, the mould for an acoustic wall tile and a large, incised plaster panel. Accompanying these are photographs of Coper taken by his wife, Jane, in his Digswell studio around the time he was making the murals.
Born in Germany, Coper’s childhood was blighted by the rise of the Nazis. Following his Jewish father’s suicide, Coper eventually found himself in England but was arrested as an enemy alien and sent to an internment camp in Canada. After the war, he returned to the UK where he became a British citizen and went on to become one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Known for complex, incised patterns, Coper bridged the gap between pottery and sculpture as his vessels allowed for grander ambitions. Articulating forms that rested on other forms with a disc of clay, he created tough-bodied works with deliberately scratched and abraded surfaces.
He began as part of an émigré work force in Paddington led by his friend and mentor, Lucie Rie (1902-1995), who would later comment “I am a potter, but [Coper] was an artist”.
The murals were an integral touchstone in his career. Made shortly after his first solo exhibition and after leaving Rie’s Albion Mews studio, they heralded a new, experimental phase, and were created in his new studio in Digswell, Hertfordshire. All were site-specific and commissioned for buildings or spaces that were constructed in the 1960s.
Coper was commissioned by the Royal Army Pay Corps (RAPC), crafting a 10ft high mural that originally adorned Winchester’s Worthy Down barracks. This mural depicted a stripped back and simplified version of the RAPC cap badge, sitting above the RAPC’s motto “Fide et Fiducia” (in faith and trust), with the badge’s lion emblem looking out over the Hampshire countryside. The cream of the ceramics and the brown back plate would deliberately have contrasted with the barracks’ red brick. The mural was removed decades ago, and has not been on public display since, but plans are in place for it to be permanently installed at Winchester’s Adjutant General Corps (AGC) Museum.
The second mural, consisting of several double-sided stoneware discs, each with distinct surfaces either glazed with black manganese or layered with porcelain slips, was designed to be installed at Rotherham’s Swinton School in 1961. A daily presence for schoolchildren for over 50 years, it was rescued from the school's demolition in 2009 and although it had a brief tour in London and Japan, has not been publicly displayed since.
The third mural was made for the entrance hall of the Powell Duffryn Group offices in Berkeley Street, London, in 1961. Featuring multiple stoneware discs that occasionally interlock, the colours incorporate glazes from manganese black and brown to cream shades. It took pride of place there for three years, before being relocated and arranged in a different configuration without Coper’s approval. Sold in 1985 to a private collector, the piece has been in Germany since and was recently sold into new private ownership. After completing these three murals and moving on from the Digswell studio, Coper would never again return to the form.
At the same time as the mural commissions, Coper made what is probably his most well-known series of works: six monumental candlesticks that adorn the steps of Coventry Cathedral. The maquettes for these will be included in the exhibition.
Kirsty Rodda, Visual Arts Exhibition Manager at The Arc, commented: “Our original ambition was to have the privilege of being able to display one of Coper’s murals in our exhibition. We are now in the unprecedented position where we will be displaying all three. We could not be more thrilled that The Gallery will be the first and only venue ever to display these unique works together: when the exhibition comes to a close in March, all three murals will go their separate ways.”
The exhibition is made in collaboration with the AGC Museum, Winchester, the Crafts Study Centre, Farnham, and the Coper Estate, with additional loans from York Museums Trust and private lenders.
To celebrate one of Britain’s greatest and most innovative ceramicists, a wide range of events and activities for visitors of all ages will be available throughout the exhibition run. After-school art classes and half-term introductions to abstract art will give children the chance to air dry their own clay pots, create cardboard and wire sculptures, as well as to create their own abstract painting and drawing. There will also be similar opportunities for adult courses.
More information about Hans Coper: Resurface is availabel on The Arc website, https://www.arcwinchester.org.uk/event/hans-coper-resurface
Images: Copyright Jane Coper