As an artisan, a designer, and an educator, Prip played a pivotal role in modern and experimental silversmithing in the United States in the mid-20th century. A fourth generation metalsmith, Prip was born in New York and raised in Denmark. At the age of 15 he began an apprenticeship in his father’s silversmithing factory. In 1948, Prip brought his skills and Scandinavian style to the United States to teach at the School for American Craftsmen at Alfred University. A few years later, the school transitioned to the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he established and co-owned Shop One, an influential retail shop for modern, handmade wares, with Ronald Hayes Pearson, Frans Wildenhain, and Tage Frid. In 1957, Prip became the Artist in Residence at Reed and Barton in Massachusetts for three years, producing numerous notable modern designs. Prip then taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts for several years before accepting a position at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he taught for nearly 20 years. Over the course of his career, Prip constantly experimented with materials and techniques, ultimately transitioning into sculpture. The copper sculptural studies and related drawings reveal Prip’s working process as he made notations on both the drawings and the copper to work out compound curves and other difficult shapes.

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