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From father to son… to daughter

Mark Tinsky has a lot of respect for the carver who might one day become his business successor. "His greatest assets are his eye for symmetry and proportion, and his pickiness about doing something correctly," says Mark of his 17 year old son Glenn. Is the pipe scene reviving the tradition of family trades?

Needless to say, Mark and Glenn Tinsky are no new phenomenon. The pipe-making trade has been passed from father to son for centuries - since well before the introduction of briar, in fact. Francois Comoy made his first clay pipes in 1825. In 1848, his son Louis switched to wooden bowls, paving the way for grandson Henri to move the family business to London in 1879 - eventually to be sucked up by Cadogan. Charatan's was another brand to remain in one family for almost a century. More recently, of course, there are the Ivarssons - two generations of males and one reportedly brilliant young woman.

Chonowitsch careers

In Europe, the tradition of family trades remained fairly intact well into the first half of the 20th century. However, under the apprenticeship system common in many countries, sons would not train with their fathers, but with an acquainted master of the craft, returning to the fold as fully-fledged craftsmen. This was to ensure a strict education undiluted by favouritism - and also to guarantee an influx of fresh ideas into a family business.

But such traditions followed a fairly logical and essentially unsentimental path, both in their heyday and their decline. Once a safeguard of survival, many family occupations lost their raison d'etre as general affluence grew. Formerly respected trades were stripped of their financial attraction, and the father-son pattern was broken with increasing frequency. Since WWII it has been the exception, rather than the rule in most careers - and pipe making has not been one of its last bastions in northern Europe.

Take Emil and Jess Chonowitsch, for example. A casual observer might assume a case of father-to-son succession, whereas in reality, Emil was a tobacconist until his middle years, when he learned carving alongside his son, rather than ahead of him. Both spent time with Poul Rasmussen in the mid-1960s, with Emil later setting up his own business, while Jess first enhanced his training by working for Sixten Ivarsson.

From quite early on, the greatest similarity between the two Chonowitsch artisans was their name. Otherwise, Emil was best known for standard shapes, hand-turned and initially reasonably priced, whereas Jess went for the more elitist freehand production style. A 'family flavour' is hard to discern - though today, much of the elder Chonowitsch's attraction on the estate market is inversely inherited from his almost legendary son. That's not to say that Emil's work isn't excellent. "I think a lot of enthusiasts simply want to own 'a Chonowitsch', and that many don't really care whether it's an Emil or a Jess," collector Jörg Lehmann said in the German section of Pfeifenbox, last autumn. "On top of the price difference, one might add that they can be very happy with an Emil, both for its smoking qualities and for its craftsmanship."

Italian blood

In general, perhaps, northern Europe is simply too 'socially modern' for generational takeovers to remain very frequent. Italy, on the other hand, is known as a stronghold of family traditions - allegedly the most child-friendly country on the continent. Its politics may be confusing and chaotic, even corrupt and nepotistic at times, but aren't famously intact blood relationships an integral part of the big picture?

The Rovera family has been passing the reins from father to son since 1911, and though Marco Biagini of Moretti wasn't exactly following in his father's footsteps when he became a carver, he was not far off - taking over the brand from his wife's papa. As Marco told Pfeifenbox late last year, he would not hesitate to recommend a pipe-making career to a young person today, and would certainly not be averse to one of his own children inheriting the Moretti business.

Perhaps the most symbiotic of father/son partnerships was that between Fritz and Paolo Becker in Rome. It was also a rather untypical one. Like Emil and Jess Chonowitsch, they learnt the trade around the same time, rather than decades apart. But while Chonowitsch senior and junior went their separate ways in design and technique, the Beckers founded their brand together in the 1970s, and ran it jointly until Fritz's death in 1991. There was no nomenclature to differentiate between a Fritz and a Paolo, and their styles remained very close. Of course, 13 years later, Paolo has developed in tune with the times. Today, some of his shapes clearly lean towards a new avant-garde that Fritz never witnessed. All the same, there is an unbroken design heritage, a basso continuo easily discerned in almost all Becker pipes to this day.

"The impressions given to me by my father still guide my hand, and it pleases me that the style of Becker pipes can still be traced to Fritz," Paolo says. "With the passing of the years, I have developed designs and many solutions of my own, without losing the brand's primary personality. An ongoing project is a re-edition of old pipes designed by my father for smokers and collectors. The series will be called 'My memory' and will include some of the most special Becker designs."

Danish dynasty

In Germany, Oliver Brandt's son Max started making pipes two years ago - and he is only 16 today! In contrast to the Beckers, Mike Glukler of briarblues.com says that the two makers are already rather easy to tell apart. "Both have a similar finish and use similar materials, but that is as far as it goes. I am sure you could see influences from Oliver in the earliest of Max's pipes, but now he has his own style. Max's pipes tend to be longer and slightly larger than those of Oliver. Held side by side, one can see the differences between the two men's craft. But both make high quality pipes with superb fit and finish through all their grades. Above that, both make superb smoking machines."

Then, of course, you have three generations of Ivarssons in Denmark. In a recent Pfeifenbox panel discussion, Jörg Lehmann named Nanna Ivarsson as a candidate for ultimate carving supremacy in years to come. If this happens (she might have to forsake a thriving design career), it may be time to talk of an Ivarsson dynasty. Over 60 years ago, grandfather Sixten walked into a Copenhagen pipe shop to get a repair done - and had to do the work himself, figuring it out alone, since the resident craftsman was sick. According to legend, the owner of the store (Suhrs) offered him a job on the spot, and pretty soon, word of a new style of pipe design was getting around the Danish capital.

Though Sixten's post-war pipes were up to 10 times as expensive as factory pieces, demand continued to increase. In the 1950s, he developed many of his famous shapes - not just for affluent smokers, but also for Stanwell's more affordable portfolio. By working for that budding firm, Sixten Ivarsson had a tremendous influence on the broad consumer market, besides teaching the craft to later masters such as Bo Nordh, Jorn Micke, Jess Chonowitsch and, of course, his own son Lars.

Born in 1944, Lars inherited the Ivarsson legend, but soon developed his own version of it. One of the most exclusive makers in the world today, he is said to spend days on every single pipe he carves. Thus, his daughter Nanna had the benefit of watching two of the planet's most celebrated carvers at very close quarters, often helping her grandfather Sixten in his later years. Currently, she spends most of her time designing toys and furniture, and the few pipes she has made available are extremely expensive. A three-generation set of Ivarssons is the dream of many collectors - but for most, it's a hopelessly pricey ambition.

For considerably less, you can get quite a few two-generation sets of Tinskys. While shapes by father and son are still pretty similar, you can safely expect Glenn to develop a unique style in future. Mark says that "he has a strong mind of his own and does things his own way. He'll ask for advice once in a while, but pretty much figures out things for himself. As far as style goes, he's working more on just shaping techniques and trying to make pipes and styles that fit his mind's eye. I'm sure he'll go far, if he keeps up with it."

(March 19, 2004)

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