He trained as a goldsmith at the age of 14, studied sculpture and applied arts and set up a pottery studio, but in 1901 Danish-born Georg Jensen decided to retrain as a silversmith. Announcing that he had seen ‘beautiful things in galleries and ugly things in shops’ during his overseas travels, he intended to merge the two into beautiful things sold in shops and in 1904 he set up his own business in Copenhagen, where he employed silversmiths to bring his designs to fruition. After incessantly drawing on the back of envelopes, napkins or whatever paper might be lying in arm’s reach, his designs would be redrawn as usable schematics for the shop’s silversmiths to use.
By 1914 approximately 483 designs were in production, most of which were Jensen’s own. When he participated in the Modern Danish Applied Art exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design, his work was praised by critic Emil Hannover who said: ‘…What young Jensen has achieved with his jewellery is to produce a selection of inexpensive pieces and at the same time give them an individual artistic character.’
Jensen was a big personality with a quick temper and an energising work ethic; he inspired pride and loyalty among his staff. He even took the unusual step of allowing other designers with whom he collaborated to use their own marks on their works for Georg Jensen.
The Georg Jensen jewellery brand rose to prominence in the early to mid-20th century, its linear styling inspired by natural forms still appealing to the modern buyer today. Retail outlets were opened in Berlin, London and New York and in 1924 one of the firm’s most important clients – Peder Anders Pedersen – became the company chairman, giving Jensen the freedom to concentrate on artistic design. His jewellery designs were entirely in silver, accented with a variety of semiprecious stones that were almost exclusively cabochon cut. He also often reused the same motifs and decorative elements, in some cases to create sets but also in pieces intended to be worn individually. A scalloped design, or acanthus leaves, or a cluster of grapes might appear on a brooch as well as a belt buckle or a necklace or perhaps a pair of cufflinks.
The firm won the Grand Prix at international exhibitions in Paris in 1925, Barcelona in 1929 and Brussels six years later in 1935. When he died in 1935, the New York Herald Tribune saluted Georg Jensen as the greatest silversmith of the last 300 years.
But Jensen’s design ethos did not die with him. Designers such as Henning Koppel, Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe, Nanna Ditzel, Astrid Fog, Harald Nielsen and Ibe Dahlquist continued working within the company’s trademark aesthetic of sleek, minimalist and smooth design.
Trained as an artist and sculptor, Henning Koppel began a lifelong collaboration with the Georg Jensen firm in the mid-1940s. He experimented with organic and sculptural forms in his jewellery designs, often drawing inspiration from nature and using elegant, minimalist and flowing lines. Henning’s first piece created for the silversmithy was the Amoeba bracelet, with each link its own shape and design. The curves and links employed three-dimensional bends and varying widths, with each link joining directly to the next in a groundbreaking style that had never been seen before. Koppel also designed porcelain pieces for Bing & Grondahl, lights and clocks for Louis Poulsen & Co., glass for Kastrup and Orrefors, furniture for Kvetny & Sonner, the logo for a soccer team and a postage stamp.
Nielsen was married to Georg Jensen’s sister Johanne. A talented draughtsman and artist, he often translated the sketches of Jensen’s designs, which were frequently on paper napkins, into reality. He started as a chaser’s apprentice in 1909 and worked his way up to designer/director of the smithy school of apprentices. After Jensen’s death in 1935, Nielsen upheld the firm’s high quality design and output by recruiting talented young designers and silversmiths (he was responsible for discovering Henning Koppel). In 1954 he became the smithy director and in 1958 he became artistic director of the Company, a position he held for four years.
An apprentice under Georg Jensen when he joined the firm in 1904 at the age of 14, Henry Pilstrup created many jewellery designs between 1918 and 1957. One of the first designers outside of Georg Jensen himself who exhibited his own pieces under the silversmithy’s name, Pilstrup won the award for Most Beautiful Exhibit at The Independent Exhibition in Denmark in 1909.
Working with Olof Barve, who executed her designs, Ibe Dahlquist rose to prominence in the mid-1950s when the pair exhibited a series of silver jewellery set with fossils and rocks that had been scavenged from Gotland beaches. She was inspired by nature and enjoyed including unworked materials in her designs. Dahlquist joined Georg Jensen in 1965, turning to a more austere design of repeated geometric forms for her modernist jewellery.
An award-winning furniture designer before she turned to jewellery in the 1950s, Ditzel’s jewellery designs were architectural and bold. She worked predominantly in silver but also produced several designs in 18ct gold. She was the first woman to design for Georg Jensen, and with her first husband Jorgen had created five pieces for the Georg Jensen 50th anniversary exhibition, including a beautifully shaped ‘axe’ bracelet that appeared to be heavy but was, in fact, hollow to allow for easy wear. All five of Nanna’s pieces were very well received and many of her further jewellery designs would go on to win various awards and prizes. Her designs were primarily known for their immense volume and simple geometrical shapes with large, polished surfaces.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Soren (Jensen’s fifth child) studied sculpture at the Royal Danish Academy, becoming a silverware designer at the Georg Jensen Company in 1949 and operating as its artistic director from 1962 to 1974. His few jewellery designs were mainly free from ornament and tended towards abstract geometric shapes. He was highly successful as a sculptor, working in this sphere to great acclaim throughout his long career at Georg Jensen.
A fashion designer who began designing jewellery to go with her clothes, Astrid Fog created her first jewellery for Georg Jensen in 1969. In the 1970s she designed the hugely popular puffed heart pendant as part of her silver spiral range. Her jewellery is distinctive in its large bold shapes, often utilising lightweight, hollow silver forms.
Otherwise known simply as Torun, Vivianna began to design exclusively for Georg Jensen in 1969, with her stainless steel bangle wristwatch becoming the first for the firm. Initially designed in 1962 as an exhibit at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in the Louvre, the watch had no numbers as it was intended to be an ornament. “When Georg Jensen began producing the watch in 1967, we added both the hour and minute hands,” said Torun. “The bracelet did not completely encircle the wrist but was left open at the outside so as not feel oneself a prisoner of time…” Inspired by nature like her predecessor, she often used the forms of flowers, leaves and water for her bracelets and necklaces, working primarily in silver and gemstones. Her innovative ‘figure of eight’ ring was, she said, one of her very earliest pieces “and to me it symbolises infinite love”. She was friends with Picasso (they used to go for walks along the beach) and designed jewellery for Billie Holliday.
– Georg Jensen
Torun hated the idea of designing for rich women who treated jewellery “as a sign of their husbands’ fortunes”.
