Knudsen, Sven: Difference between revisions

Sixten Ivarsson, who cherished Sven's work very much, introduced Sven's pipes to his Japanese business friends and customers. Hence no wonder-- thanks to Sixten's personal recommendation and due to their outstanding quality Sven's pipes quickly became very popular in Japan. Very popular? It would be much better to call it an enormous hype. As Sven's daughter Marianne later reported, her parents' house in the countryside was beleaguered by Japanese customers who would come to stay in the country for weeks at a time, some of them living in a large caravan next to the house while waiting patiently for her father to get some pipes finished. They used up all the hot water from the heater, taking long baths every day. Watching all the usual habits of the Japanese way of life like eating raw fish and seaweed must surely have been a very odd sight in the eyes of a young Danish girl at those times. Sven's daughter now visits Japan when possible, as she later became a big fan of Japanese art, food, books, movies etc....Thanks to the early introduction by her fathers Japanese friends and customers.

Sven had suffered from health issues before (diabetes). But in 1997, things got worse. The diabetes caused an onset of severe neuritis and peripheral neuropathy, a very painful disease impairing his dexterity significantly. As if this wasn't enough, he also developed a severe allergic reaction to briar dust of all things! This forced him to close his workshop for official business.

Having retired from active pipe making, Sven fell into a degree of obscurity, to the point where few collectors knew of his work, much less his pivotal role in the development of the Danish pipe. When Sam Goldberger of [http://www.finepipes.com finepipes.com] was visiting Denmark in 2003, at the suggestion of Lars Kiel of [http://www.Danishpipemakers.com Danishpipemakers.com] he asked Teddy about his older brother, and was given an introduction. He visited Sven at his house, took pictures of some of his remaining pipes, and then sold many of them at cost on his website. Subsequently, Teddy picked up the last group of pipes from Sven's workshop, finished and stamped them, and Goldberger again offered them to his customers at cost. Moreover, a number of other pipemakers, including Michael Parks, Paul Bonaquisti, Tim West, Michael Lindner contributed their own pipes to benefit Sven. A touching end to the career of a man who made many an example of the finest Danish handcrafted pipes ever.