Gerd Knapper is an innovative German ceramic artist who has lived and worked in Japan since 1971, the year he moved his kiln and workshop to Mashiko, a pottery center near Tokyo. That same year the Japanese Ministry of Culture awarded him first prize in the traditional Japanese ceramic art section of the first National Ceramic Competition in Tokyo. In 1975 he moved his kiln to Daigo in Ibaraki prefecture. Knapper has exhibited widely and won many prizes