Jan Grove

Limner; husband of Helga; father of George

Jan Grove was born on February 25, 1930 in Hamburg, Germany. He was trained in the craft of clay

sculpture by his parents Gerd and Lu Grove. He formally studied pottery and sculpture in Lübeck and

received a Master of Art Pottery designation in 1956. Jan became a designer for several West German

ceramics factories and managed his own studio for over a decade. He spent the next five years teaching

at the School of Applied Fine Arts in Istanbul, Turkey, and in 1965 he immigrated to Canada. There

Grove taught ceramics at the University of Victoria from 1966 to 1968 and also taught at the Emily Carr

Collage of Art and Design from 1980-1994. With his wife, potter Helga Grove he was a long-standing

member of the Limners art group. Jan’s work is included in many private collections, as well as in the

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the University of Victoria Art Collections, the Confederation Museum and

Art Gallery (Charlottetown, PEI), the Crafts Collection of Ministry of External Affairs (through acquisitions

of the National Gallery of Canada). Jan and Helga Grove were the subject of a retrospective exhibition at

the AGGV in 2017, the both passed away in April of 2018. We have 15 works by Jan in the collection

including a few of these iconic blue glazed works.