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Gutte Eriksen

Gutte Eriksen (1918-2008) was born in in Rødby on the island of Lolland in Denmark. She studied at the Kunsthåndvaerkskolen in Copenhagen from 1936 to 1939. 

In 1948, she spent two months working with Bernard Leach in St Ives, and later that year she worked in France with Pierre Lion and Vassil Ivanoff. She visited Japan to work with potters there in 1970 and again in 1973. It was the personal interpretation of articles for everyday use – pitchers, cups and vases – that became the foundation of her work.

The Danish pottery tradition and the ceramic tradition of the East became the sources, from which Gutte Eriksen takes her inspiration. Since then she has produced some of our time’s most advanced and interesting ceramic works. Like an alchemist Gutte Eriksen works with the basic elements of ceramics. The rough clay that she mixes herself is thrown and worked up into simple, classic and clear shapes. Colours and surface qualities are varied through regulation of kiln temperature and air volume during the firing process. She has been of great significance to present-day young ceramicists and is represented in museums and private collections all over the world.