Geert Lap
Geert Lap
Dutch, 1951–2017
Ceramics has lost one of its finest potters and artists. Geert Lap (December 24 1951 – April 26, 2017) died from an infection while in the hospital.
His pots were the purest and most riveting expression of the minimal vessel, drawing collectors such as Claes Oldenberg, Ellsworth Kelly and numerous museums across the world. He was represented in the United States for many years by the Garth Clark Gallery in both Los Angles and New York. Plagued for much of his life by mental health issues his output slowed down in the last decades.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in an exhibition catalog stated, “his earliest works—pure cylindrical forms usually associated with functionality but devoid of spouts, handles, and surface decoration—presage his future ceramic output, although now he has exchanged porcelain for stoneware, a material which he feels is sturdier and allows for sharper forms. Lap works in traditional methods making vases, bowls, and dishes, although he is not concerned with their usability. Each piece is one-of-a-kind and made by his own hand. Color and form are integral.”
Ceramics, Art and Perception characterized Geert lap as a “lonely traveler in the field of contemporary Dutch ceramics.” They further explained that “Dutch ceramics is as versatile as international ceramics and, at the moment, shows a tendency to the bold, sculptural and narrative postmodernism, whereas Geert Lap has found his power in the consistent exercises in restraint.”
Geert Lap began his art career as jeweler studied at the AKV St. Joost from 1974 to 1976, and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie is from 1976 to 1979 under Jan van der Vaart.
C-File, May 1, 2017. https://cfileonline.org/newsfile-a-farewell-to-geert-lap-and-rebecca-warrens-inaugural-exhibition/?utm_source=CFile&utm_campaign=407125bbf8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9e95897b20-407125bbf8-142343241&mc_cid=407125bbf8&mc_eid=25be201abd
Person TypePerson
American, born Chile, 1939
Italian, born Argentina, 1899–1968
