Georg Arthur Jensen (31 August 1866 in Rådvad – 2 October 1935 in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

) was a Danish

silversmith A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exactly synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product may vary grea ...

and founder of

Georg Jensen A/S Georg Jensen A/S (originally Georg Jensens Sølvsmedie A/S) is a Danish designer company with focus on silverware. It was founded by silversmith Georg Jensen in 1904. History After finishing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1892, Georg J ...

(also known as Georg Jensen Sølvsmedie).

Early life

Born in 1866, Jensen was the son of a knife grinder in the town of Raadvad, just to the north of Copenhagen. Jensen began his training in goldsmithing at the age of 14 in Copenhagen. His apprenticeship with the firm Guldsmed Andersen, ended in 1884, and this freed Georg to follow his artistic interests. In 1884 he became a

journeyman A journeyman, journeywoman, or journeyperson is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that fie ...

and in 1887 he enrolled at the

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts ( da, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi - Billedkunst Skolerne) has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years, playing its part in the development of the art of Denmark. History The Royal Dan ...

(Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi), where he studied sculpture with

Theobald Stein Theobald Stein (7 February 1829 – 16 November 1901) was a Danish sculptor. He was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and served as its director from 1883 to 1886. Among his most well-known works are the Niels Juel statue ...

. He graduated in 1892 and began exhibiting his work. After graduation he started studying ceramics with Joachim Petersen (1870–1943). Although his ceramic sculptures was well received, making a living as a fine artist proved difficult and he turned his hand to the applied arts. First as a modeller at the

Bing & Grøndahl Bing & Grøndahl was a Danish porcelain manufacturer founded in 1853 by the sculptor Frederik Vilhelm Grøndahl and merchant brothers Meyer Hermann Bing and Jacob Herman Bing. The trademark backstamp for Bing & Grøndahl (B&G) porcelains is the t ...

porcelain factory and, beginning in 1898, with a small pottery workshop he founded in partnership with Christian Petersen. Again the work was well received, but the sales were not strong enough to support Jensen, now a widower, and his two young sons.

Career

Jensen made his first piece of jewelry in 1899, a silver and silver and gilt "Adam and Eve" belt buckle. In 1901, Jensen abandoned ceramics and began again as a silversmith and designer with the master,

Mogens Ballin Mogens Ballin (20 March 1871, Copenhagen – 27 January 1914, Hellerup) was a Danish artist, one of a group of painters who gathered in the Breton village of Pont-Aven School, Pont-Aven. He later became a notable silversmith designing jewelry and ...

. This led Jensen to make a landmark decision, when in 1904, he risked what small capital he had and opened his own little silversmithy at 36 Bredgade in Copenhagen. Jensen's training in metalsmithing along with his education in the fine arts allowed him to combine the two disciplines and revive the tradition of the artist craftsman. Soon, the beauty and quality of his Art Nouveau creations caught the eye of the public and his success was assured. The Copenhagen quarters were greatly expanded and before the end of the 1920s, Jensen had opened retail in Berlin (1909), London (1921), and New York City (1924). The New York retail store,

Georg Jensen Inc. (New York, NY) Georg Jensen Inc. was a gift and department store known for Scandinavian imports located in midtown Manhattan at 667 Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street from 1935-1968. In 1935, it was founded and managed by Frederik Lunning (1881-1952), re-inventing his o ...

, was founded and operated independently as a family business by Frederik Lunning, a successful salesman of Georg Jensen products first in Odense, then in Copenhagen. The first store, 1924-1935, was incorporated as Georg Jensen Handmade Silver followed in 1935-1978 by the large Fifth Avenue

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

selling many goods aside from Jensen silver, incorporated as

. In 1930, Adda Husted Andersen worked for Jensen in New York City,

enameling Vitreous enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between . The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, durable vitreous coating. The word comes from the Latin ...

homewares.

Museum collections and exhibitions

During his lifetime, Jensen's work was collected by museums including the Danish Museum for Decorative Art and the

Museum Folkwang Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...

. In 2005, the

Bard Graduate Center The Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture is a graduate research institute and gallery located in New York City. It is affiliated with Bard College, located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The gallery occup ...

in New York presented an exhibition entitled, ''Georg Jensen Jewelry.''

Georg Jensen brand signs

When he was twenty Georg Jensen signed his first sculpture with "My Father" (1887). In 1894 he used the markings GJ as

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create ...

sign and from 1899 he often used GJ. In most cases the year was put next to the brand sign.

Brand signs of Georg Jensen

Brand signs from the designers of Georg Jensen

Family tree Georg Jensen

References

Sources

Georg Jensen, Ib (1999 & 2004) ”Der var engang en sølvsmed - Historien om min far Georg Jensen” (Once there were a silversmith – the story of my father). By Ib Georg Jensen, Georg Jensen's youngest son and published in Danish by publishing house Aschehoug, Denmark, in 1999 (1st Edition) , 227 pages. Also published in Danish by publishing house Forum (Forlaget Forum), Denmark, in 2004 (2nd Edition) , 227 pages.

External links

Official Georg Jensen PageThe Georg Jensen Society

Georg Jensen
Background information on the history and design drafts at the design agency TAGWERC {{DEFAULTSORT:Jensen, Georg Danish designers Danish silversmiths 20th-century Danish metalsmiths 1866 births 1935 deaths Art Nouveau designers People from Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality Designers from Copenhagen 20th-century Danish sculptors Male sculptors 19th-century sculptors Danish male artists Burials at Hellerup Cemetery 20th-century Danish male artists