Hansen & Ross Pottery

The works from the Hansen-Ross pottery stand out for their faithfulness to the modernistic Scandinavian design tradition. They were partially influenced by the Leach-Hamada craft ethos, dominant since the 1940 publication of Leach’s “A Potters Book.” They were, however, relatively uninfluenced by the new tidal wave of American-inspired styles, forms and teaching.  A joint similarity of training and aesthetics kept the Hansen-Ross line pure, clean, precise and modern in the Scandinavian idiom.

Their works possess a geometric simplicity of form whether ovoid, cylinder or circle: vase or bottle, cup or dish. The surface decoration can be linear and deeply carved, or etched sgraffito, or linear, slip-trailed flows and bands.  It is always precise and pure  with no fussiness. The colours are usually muted, sometimes flat when from the electric-kiln firing, sometimes speckled like a bird’s egg when from the gas-kiln firing.  Folmer acknowledged they usually avoided high gloss glazes.1 Later works, post-1974, can be loosely identified by the relative sparseness of surface design. The overall designs always enhance and define the forms.

Their work can be seen by some as problematic. There was definitely the tourist trade in such things as the thousands of coffee mugs purchased. Yet there was that other side to their work, the work of the potter-artist, with unique, sometimes large one-of-a-kind pieces that appealed to collectors.