Sculptor and poet, born in Nottingham, who began studying economics and philosophy at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1939, interrupted by Army service abroad from 1940–5, returning to complete his degree in 1946. After studying sculpture with Frank Dobson at the Royal College of Art, 1949–52, in 1953 he left on a short travelling scholarship to Greece, staying for several years. Although he returned to England for six years, Greece remained a lifelong passion and he periodically visited it, living for a time on the island of Lesbos. His second wife was from Sweden and he settled there in 1971. Piper’s exhibitions included Piccadilly Gallery, 1957, and Galerie St Paul, Stockholm, 1972. His public commissions included both abstract and figurative work, notably in Leicestershire, examples there ranging from the 1958 stylised Boar, in bronze, at Burleigh Community College, Loughborough, to the 1962 abstract Mineral Tree, in a range of materials, at Loughborough University.