GEORG JENSEN
Danish 1866-1935
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Georg Arthur Jensen was born on August 31st, 1866 in Rådvad, Denmark, just north of Copenhagen. His father was a knife grinder and worked in a knife factory. Jensen worked with his father at this factory from an early age, receiving little schooling. In his youth, he showed a keen interest in the arts and at the age of fourteen his family moved to Copenhagen where he began his apprenticeship as a goldsmith at the firm Guldsmed Andersen. He attended a technical school on Sundays for additional training. In his spare time, Jensen modelled clay, having long wanted to become a sculptor.
Jensen ended his apprenticeship in 1884, and began pursuing a career in sculpting. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts as a sculpture student, graduating in 1892 at the age of 25. His work was well received, and one of his pieces, The Harvested, was exhibited at the Charlottenborg annual exhibition in 1883.
In 1891, Jensen married Marie Christine Antonette Wulff, and had two children. Antonette died suddenly from kidney disease in 1897. It was a challenging period for Jensen both personally and professionally, as it was difficult making a living as a sculptor. He turned his attention back to the applied arts, working as a modeller at the Bing & Grøndahl porcelain factory. In 1898, Jensen founded a small pottery workshop in partnership with his personal friend and painter, Christian Petersen. In 1904, Jensen opened his own small silversmithy in Copenhagen.
Jensen was given a travel grant by the Danish Academy and spent two years touring the art centers of France and Italy. This exposed him to the Art Nouveau style which greatly influenced his work and developed his ambition to fuse beauty and function into his creations. Jensen exhibited his silverwork for the first time in the fall of 1904 at the Museum of Decorative Art in Copenhagen. The exhibition was an immediate success and helped launch his business.
In the early years of his business, Jensen primarily produced jewelry with the intention of creating affordable art for the middle classes, while emphasizing the value of handmade craftsmanship over mass produced goods. Jensen also collaborated with other artists such as the Danish artist Christian Mohl Hansen. Together they produced the dove brooch which became a motif in many of his jewelry pieces. The design endures to this day. Jensen began creating hollowware, such as a teapot with the now familiar “Magnolia” design. Around this time, Georg Jensen remarried Maren Pedersen, his housekeeper who was pregnant with his child.
In 1905, Jensen began what was to become one of his most important collaborations with Johan Rohde. Rohde’s approach to design was cautious and methodical which complimented Jensen’s more romantic and impulsive approach. In 1916, Rohde designed the most famous of Jensen’s flatware patters, ACORN.
His second wife’s health declined over many years and in 1907, she passed away of tuberculosis. Jensen fell in love again that year to Johanne Nielsen, and married her within the year’s end. Jensen’s workshop gained a reputation for having a friendly, democratic atmosphere that was conducive to collaboration and a feeling of solidarity among the staff. His sales steadily grew and often his pieces would sell out. Eventually, Johanne’s family became involved and helped with bookkeeping, sales, photography, and even apprenticing in the workshop. Jensen sold shares of his firm to support its expansion. The success of his business life was unfortunately overshadowed by the death of his third wife from Spanish Influenza in 1918.
Retail outlets continued to expand through Europe, with Berlin in 1909 and another in Paris shortly after World War I. By 1921 he had a location in London and then in 1925 in Barcelona. He continued to expand throughout Europe and by 1935 to the US. Jensen’s reputation in the US was propelled by his solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1921, which was accompanied by an English language book. This led to the opening of a shop in the US, and the American marked loved his sophisticated, simple yet decorative pieces so much that they were in great demand and often sold out. The company continued to thrive, and by the end of the 1920s, Jensen had retail outlets in New York, London, Paris, Stockholm, and Berlin.
The last decade of Jensen’s life was lined with professional accolades. He was awarded the Grand Prix at the Paris World’s Fair in 1925, the 1929 World’s Fair in Barcelona, and again in 1935 at the World’s Fair in Brussels. He was the only silversmith outside Great Britain to exhibit at the Goldsmith’s Hall in 1932. Georg Jensen passed away in 1935 at the age of 69.