Georg Jensen – Silversmith (Danish, 1866 to 1935)
Georg Jensen was born on August 31, 1866 (the seventh of eight children) in Radvaad, Denmark, north of Copenhagen in the countryside. His father worked as a grinder at a knife factory, where Jensen also worked at a young age.
His family recognized and encouraged young Georg’s artistic instincts, and when he was 14 the family moved to Copenhagen so he could be apprenticed to a goldsmith. At this time, he spent any spare time modeling clay. Eventually Jensen gained admission as a sculpture student to the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen. He graduated in 1892.
In 1891, Jensen had married Marie Christiane Antonette Wulff, and had two children. He was unsuccessful as a sculptor and along with friend and painter Christian Joachim Petersen started a pottery making business.
In 1897 his wife died from kidney disease, leaving him with two small boys.
Although the pottery business was not very lucrative, Jensen and Petersen did have a piece (“The Maid on the Jar”) accepted for exhibition in the Danish Pavilion at 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. The piece received critical acclaim both in Denmark and internationally. His ceramic work with Joachim Pedersen in their small workshop north of Copenhagen was not greatly lucrative.
Luckily, Jensen was forced to take a job with a Danish silversmith Mogens Baillin who was a follower of art nouveau. Baillin allowed the artists who worked under him to exhibit under their own names. He paid Jensen a commission on the pieces he made.
In early 1904 Jensen decided to open his own shop and rented space at 36 Bredgade in the center of Copenhagen. At the age of 37, he had his own silver business. That fall, he exhibited for the first time as an independent silversmith at the Museum of Decorative Art in Copenhagen. This exhibit was immediate successful!
In 1905 Jensen began his collaboration with Johan Rohde. In 1916, Rohde designed the most famous of Jensen’s flatware patterns, ACORN. The lifelong collaboration was based on mutual respect and esteem. Jensen made his first full set of flatware called Continental in 1907. It is still popular today.
By 1908, Jensen had eleven men on his staff, and soon his shop was expanded, as people could not get enough of his fine Art Nouveau silver creations.
Before the close of the 1920′s, Jensen had opened retail outlets as far ranging as New York, London, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin and Buenos Aires.
He won the Grand Prix at the World’s Fair in Brussels in 1935 and was the only silversmith outside Great Britain to exhibit at the Goldsmiths’ Hall. Georg Jensen passed away at age 69 and was buried in Hellerup cemetery in Denmark.