The Stunning Designs Of Georg Jensen

Jewelry was not simply one aspect of Georg Jensen's production, it was at the heart of the firm's early success. In those early, undercapitalized days, there was a fast turnover in brooches and belt buckles that helped the Jensen smithy to expand in less than 20 years from a small, second-floor storefront to an international company.

The surprise is that something like this has not been done before. Despite its importance in the his-tory of modern design, the Jensen silversmithy seems to have been overlooked by exhibition organizers, and the last big show in the United States took place 25 years ago.

Founder Georg Jensen was, until recently, an elusive figure. Jensen published his autobiography as a short magazine feature, and his early biographers preferred the pamphlet format. More substantial works were published after his death, though these were accessible principally to readers of the Danish language. Recent scholarship, much of it in English, confirms Jensen's modesty and benevolence, but it also reveals a less serene man than the contemplative nature-lover of his self-portrait.

Jensen was born in a rural village near Copenhagen. His mother was, before her marriage, a house-maid, and his father worked in a knife factory. For a time, it looked as if Jensen would follow the same course. However, his apprenticeship at the knife factory was interrupted by the family's move to Co-penhagen in 1880. Jensen, by then in his mid-teens, started anew with a goldsmith, who retained him as an apprentice until 1886.

After his training was finished, Jensen was employed by another goldsmith, but he was too unsettled to stay there long. What Jensen really wanted to be was a sculptor. It was not a new ambition. He had been modeling clay figures since childhood and had taken classes in drawing and modeling during his apprenticeship with the goldsmith. An introduction to a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts was the first step to his admission, in 1887, to the academy's school of sculpture.

The next years augured well for the young artist. His work was chosen for the annual spring exhibition at Charlottenborg Palace in Copenhagen, once when he was a student and a few times after he graduated in 1892. Beginning in 1897, he also participated in the Free Exhibitions, which were the avant-garde alternative to Charlottenborg. There was even the opportunity to visit France and Italy, thanks to a travel grant awarded by the academy. Despite an auspicious start, Jensen had trouble earning a living as a sculptor. He could not depend on his family for money, and his financial responsibilities were increased by early marriage and fatherhood.

Thus began a series of design jobs with poor and uncertain remuneration that took Jensen further and further away from sculpting. He worked for various ceramic firms, which made use of his talent for modeling. In 1898, he and two friends began to make art pottery on their own. Their vases and bowls were praised and illustrated in the press. The critical attention accorded their work was significant because there were many better known firms in Denmark that were also producing art pottery. In 1899, the Danish Museum of Decorative Art acquired the "Maid on the Jar," a heavy, unglazed terra-cotta jug that was exhibited that year at Charlottenborg and possibly again the following year at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Nonetheless, pottery proved to be no more lucrative than sculpture, and Jensen was forced to look about for a more reliable source of income. He had in the past fallen back on smithing, but these were stopgap jobs to supplement his student budget and during the flailing years, when he could not make a living as a sculptor. By the turn of the century, Jensen's views had changed and he saw metalwork as compatible with his artistic vocation rather than as an expedient respite from penury.

Jensen's eventual acceptance of his childhood profession coincided with his exposure to the new ideas, which rejected the traditional hierarchy that rated painting and sculpture above the applied arts. Co-penhagen might not have been one of the great arts capitals, but it was possible to stay abreast of what was happening in places like France and England. There were exhibitions at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art and foreign and local art publications. As a member of the Danish delegation to the 1900 Exposition Universelle, Jensen would have seen firsthand the respect accorded the applied arts.