Holmgaard (Jens Holmgaard)

Holmgaard is the name given to the very small number of handmade pipes left behind by Danish maker Jens Holmgaard (1937-2004). Treating the name as a brand is a label that took hold only afterward: Holmgaard never sold a single pipe in his life and never stamped any body he made with his own name. Even so, the direct relationship he formed with the founding figure of the Danish School has been enough to attach his name to pipe history.

From Teaching to the Bench

Holmgaard is said to have been born in 1937 in Slagelse, on the island of Zealand. He spent his working life as a woodworking teacher; records show he taught at a youth school in Stenløse between 1976 and 1993. Given his interest in art and sculpture combined with his knowledge of wood, his turn toward pipe making was not unexpected.

What proved decisive was a matter of neighborly chance. Holmgaard's home and workshop were very close to where Sixten Ivarsson, regarded as the founding master of Danish pipe making, worked; as the story goes, he could see Ivarsson's workshop from his own window. The friendship that developed between the two men turned into an informal apprenticeship for Holmgaard.