Jørn Micke

Jørn Micke (1937-2005) belongs to the second generation of Danish pipemaking, a master who left behind very few pipes despite a wide reputation attached to his name. He spent most of his life on Bornholm, the Danish island in the Baltic Sea, working in painting and sculpture alongside pipes.

From Medicine to the Workshop

Micke's first professional choice was medicine; in his youth he studied medicine in Copenhagen. According to the account given, this direction began to unravel after a trip to Bornholm in 1958, and turned into a lasting decision the following year on his second visit to the island. He had drawn since childhood; a pipe-smoking habit begun early on led him to carve a few pipes for his own use.

What turned this amateur pursuit into a profession was his friendship with Sixten Ivarsson, formed through a shared passion for fishing. After working roughly a year as an apprentice in Ivarsson's workshop, Micke settled permanently on Bornholm in 1963 and set up his own bench. From that point on the idea of medicine never resurfaced; he made his living through a threefold artistic output of painting, sculpture, and pipes.

Style and Production

Micke's name is linked with the generation that gathered around Sixten Ivarsson in Denmark in the 1960s — Lars Ivarsson, Jess Chonowitsch, and Bo Nordh. The strongest link in this connection was Lars Ivarsson; the closeness between the two masters is said to have lasted until Micke's death. Still, the life he led on the island kept Micke outside the everyday circulation of Denmark's pipe circles: most Danish makers never met him in person.

The workshop's output was extremely low; records indicate the annual total stood at around twenty pipes. The bulk of these pipes went directly to buyers, with a significant portion going to Japan. Micke's shape sensibility is considered a line that is hard to define but recognizable on sight, one that highlights the grain of the briar root and the balance of the mass. It is said that a Micke pipe appeared on the cover of a well-known Chicago-based tobacconist's catalogue in the late 1960s. The master is also reported to have made porcelain pipe designs for Royal Copenhagen.

Stamps

Micke's pipes are generally stamped with the name "Micke," the year of manufacture, and a number. Examples he judged the most successful by his own standard are said to have carried a zebra figure as well; this mark is considered an indicator of the workshop's own internal grading. "Denmark" may also appear in the stamps as the country name.

Jørn Micke died in 2005. The number of pipes he left behind is very small compared with the output of his contemporaries within the Danish school; for this reason his examples are seen today only rarely, on the secondary market.