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 Sold by Georg Jensen Inc.
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
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
- ^ 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.