Lars Ivarsson was a master pipe maker from Denmark who changed the world of pipes forever. Sadly, he died at age 73 on Feb. 11, 2018, but his impact can be seen in the details of every new hand made pipe created by an artisan pipe maker, whether in the United States, Japan, China, Russia, Germany, Greece or a dozen other countries around the world.
Lars was the son of the legendary Sixten Ivarsson, who created some of the most beautiful freehands at a time when most pipes were factory made and in classical shapes.
Lars idolized his dad, but as a young man he felt a lot of pressure because he wanted to make pipes his own way. He learned the basics from Sixten, but rather than laboring in his father’s gigantic shadow year after year, Lars went out on his own and created unique shapes and techniques that eventually became classics themselves.
In other words, it can be said that Sixten rebelled against the classical shapes while Lars created a whole new genre of classical shapes.
When Sixten started making pipes, in the mid-1940s, pipe smoking was ubiquitous. It seemed like everyone smoked a pipe, and it was understandable that factories made billiards, pots, Dublins, Canadians, bulldogs and other traditional shapes, which is what we know as “classical pipes”.
But by the time Lars ended his career — meaning the present day — the pipe world had changed pretty dramatically. The “no smoking” signs have become a worldwide phenomenon, so there is much more emphasis on pipe collecting than on pipe smoking, and an army of artisan pipe makers has emerged to create functional art for the discerning collector.
Consequently, a whole new category of classical pipes has been created. They include the blowfish, the brandy glass bowl and the smooth acorn with a dark sandblasted shank. In addition, there are slight modifications of the classical shapes, such as the beveling or rounding the top of the bowl. It is incredible to realize that every one of these new classics came from Lars.
The noted collector Richard Esserman believes that Lars’s greatest contribution was his creation of the gentle S curve where the shank meets the bowl. It certainly is one his most imitated accomplishments. Along the same line, he was the first to create the a-symmetrical shank that is so prevalent today in artisan pipes.
Lars loved nature, and he remembered staring trance-like at fish in a water tank and being mesmerized by the blowfish. “That would make a beautiful pipe shape,” he said, and thus the blowfish was born. This shape is copied everywhere and holds its own place as a classic among all artisan pipe makers.
As for the acorn, Lars told me that he was walking through the woods when he stopped to study acorns that were growing on an oak tree. Lars said the bark on the twig looked very much like the sandblast on a pipe’s shank, and at the end of the twig was a smooth brown acorn. He thought that looked very much like a smooth pipe bowl, so he created a new pipe shape and finish — a smooth bowl shaped like an acorn with a long, dark, sandblasted shank. In later years, he used the same technique — a dark sandblasted shank, though not always long — with many other bowl shapes, such as the apple and Dublin.
In 1996 Lars spent a week at my house in Los Angeles, and we had many late-night conversations about pipes. He addressed his own mortality, saying that when he died, he wanted to have created a handful of pipe shapes and pipe techniques that would change the pipe world. “Just enough to fit into a cigar box,” he said.
He clearly succeeded. If you doubt this, go to the Chicago Pipe Show in May and you will see that the majority of the 300-plus tables are filled with artisan pipes that incorporate Lars Ivarsson techniques.
On a personal level, Lars was brilliant, warm and very funny. He loved to laugh. He was fluent in four languages, and he was so intelligent that it seemed like he could learn a new language just by listening to a few conversations. He was a gourmet chef and a master knife maker.
Lars was a family man who was very close to his wife, Annette (pronounced "Annetta”), and to his daughters Camilla and Nanna, and to his four grandchildren. As he received increasing international recognition for his work, he was relaxed and content during the latter years of his life. He said he had finally found peace and financial security. Lars and Annette lived in a beautiful house in the country about an hour by train from Copenhagen. His workshop was in a separate building on the property, where there was water on one side and a forest on the other.
During the past few years, Lars said that Nanna is his heir as a pipe maker, an honor that she earned by hard work and creativity over a period of decades.
Jess Chonowitsch was a close friend for half a century. They started working together in Sixten’s workshop when they were teenagers and were good friends until the end. Jess believes that Lars was the greatest pipe maker who ever lived. There are other artisan pipe makers who share this opinion, such as the brilliant artist from China, Xu Hai, and the world renowned Wolfgang Becker of Germany.
Lars will be missed personally by those of us who knew him, but his presence will continue to be felt with each new pipe made in the 21st century by an artisan pipe maker. There is no going back. His genius as a pipe maker has changed the world of pipes forever.
