Georg Jensen Inc. (New York City)
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 original New York store, Georg Jensen Handmade Silver, Inc., founded 1923, at 169 West 57th Street, across from Carnegie Hall.[1] Georg Jensen Inc. was the Lunnings' family business, official importers and vendors of Denmark's Georg Jensen silver. The firm distributed a glossy yearly mail-order catalog illustrated with museum-quality photographs, starting in 1936.[2]
The Battle of the Atlantic cut off imports starting in 1939 prompting Jensen's, a major importer from Europe, to cultivate North American artisans, some of whom had emigrated from Europe, and fill their shelves with quality goods: silver jewelry, turned wood, art enamel, tiles and ceramics, lamps. With wartime materials restrictions, Jensen's launched in fall 1942 "The Lunning Collection," a modern furniture collection comprising 21 designs by Jens Risom, executed in-house, along with pieces designed and executed by Otto Christiansen.[3]
At Frederik Lunning’s death in 1952, his son Just Lunning managed Georg Jensen Inc. until his sudden death in 1965.[4] Georg Jensen Inc. expanded in 1966, establishing a separate furniture showroom in Manhattan and satellite stores in Manhasset and Scarsdale, New York and in Milburn and Paramus, New Jersey.[5] The Trustees of the Estate of Frederik K Lunning sold all their Jensen stores in 1968, ending the Lunning era of Georg Jensen Inc.[6] In 1978, the last of a series of successor stores and corporations declared bankruptcy.[7]
Designers and artists
[edit]The yearly illustrated mail-order catalogs published by Georg Jensen Inc from 1936 offer the designs of many famous artists, including Georg Jensen, Jens Risom,[8] Dorothy Thorpe, enamelists H. Edward Winter and Karl Drerup, and Carol Janeway,[9] silversmiths Madeleine Turner, Jo Pol, LaPaglia, wood turner Otto Christiansen, among others.
Bibliography
[edit]- Drucker, Janet (2001). "A New Market: Georg Jensen Silver in the United States". Georg Jensen, A Tradition of Splendid Silver. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publications.
- Moro, Ginger (November 1996). "Behind the Scenes at Georg Jensen USA: The War Years". Silver Magazine: 28–34.
- Jenssen, Victoria (2022). "Ch.3: Georg Jensen Inc, Frederik Lunning, and Carol Janeway". The Art of Carol Janeway: A Tile & Ceramics Career with Georg Jensen Inc. and Ossip Zadkine in 1940s Manhattan. Friesen Press.
- Janet Drucker; Nancy Schiffer (2008). "Georg Jensen, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Georg Jensen Inc USA". Jensen Silver: The American Designs. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing. pp. 7–11.
- Taylor, David A., ed. (2005). Georg Jensen Jewelry. Yale University Press for the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts.
References
[edit]- ^ Susan Weber Soros (2005). "Building an International Reputation: The Georg Jensen Phenomenon in the United States, 1915-1973". In Taylor, David A. (ed.). Georg Jensen Jewelry. New Haven: Yale University Press for Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts.
- ^ "Georg Jensen Inc Catalog: 1939-40". www.jensensilver.com.
- ^ "Example in Expansion". Interiors: 40–43, 63–64. October 1942.
- ^ "Just Lunning Dies; Led Georg Jensen". New York Times. August 12, 1965.
- ^ "Jensen Enlarging its Fifth Ave. Store". New York Times. February 22, 1968.
- ^ "Seilon Will Buy Jensen Chain". New York Times. September 7, 1968.
- ^ "Georg Jensen Files for Reorganization". New York Times. July 19, 1978.
- ^ Georg Jensen Inc. (1943). "Furniture section". Catalog 1944. pp. 54–55.
- ^ Georg Jensen Inc. (1945). "Ceramics by Carol Janeway". Catalog 1946. pp. 30, 32–33.