Erik Pløen (1925 – 2004) was a modern Norwegian ceramicist.

Biography

Pløen was born in 1947 in Norway. Pløen never received any formal education on his art, but instead learned through his experience as an apprentice.

Career

Pløen started as an apprentice in 1942 Schneider and Knutzen at Slemdal in Oslo at the age of 16. In 1946, Pløen started his own workshop in Singapore. In 1958, Pløen's work was featured at the exhibition ''Formes Scandinaves'' at the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

in Paris. Pløen gained international recognition in 1961 when he was awarded the prestigious Nordic

Lunning Prize The Lunning Prize was instituted by Frederik Lunning, owner of the New York agency for Georg Jensen. The prize was awarded to eminent Scandinavian designers, two each year, from 1951 to 1970. The recipients were selected by a group of peers fro ...

. Pløen became a guest professor at the Midway Studio of the University of Chicago from 1963–1964. During his time at the University of Chicago, he installed and used a gas fired kiln, which allowed for reduction firing, a method that allowed for baking ceramics with a reduced influx of oxygen, allowing for different glazes to be used. The higher temperatures of the gas stove allowed Pløen to reduce the air supply during burning, which greatly affected the glaze colors that he used. This was a new technique in the world of Scandinavian ceramics at the time. In 1964, he was invited to exhibit at Italy’s famous

Triennale di Milano The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fina ...

. Towards the later part of his career his pieces started to loose their utility function and Erik began to model forms that were strongly inspired by what he found at the bottom of the sea when diving in the fjord. Since 2010, the record price for Pløen's works at auction is 1,306 USD for ''Vase'', sold at Blomqvist in 2023.

References

Norwegian ceramists {{DEFAULTSORT:Pløen, Erik 1925 births 2004 deaths