Jens Harald Quistgaard (April 23, 1919 – January 4, 2008) was a Danish sculptor and designer, known principally for his work for the American company
Dansk Designs, where he was chief designer from 1954 and for the following three decades.
Though a sculptor and grounded in traditional handicrafts, he quickly established a career as an industrial designer. From the mid-1950s his tableware and kitchenware designs became synonymous with
Scandinavian modern and found their way into millions of homes in the US, Europe and Japan. With his international orientation and success he was groundbreaking, and he had great significance for the place which
Danish design acquired in the minds of many Americans.[1]
In 1958, he received the
Neiman Marcus Award and during the following years he was represented at major museums in Europe and the USA.[citation needed] Many of Jens Quistgaard's works are still produced today.
Early life and training
Jens Quistgaard grew up in an artistic home in Copenhagen and already as a boy, demonstrated unusual artistic talents. The work with handicrafts began in his mother's kitchen, where he made himself a little workshop with vice and anvil. Here he produced jewellery, hunting knives, bags and ceramics. When he was young he would often be found at the village smiths, carpenters or joiners, and it was here he acquired the craftsmanship which he later used to produce models in wood, metal, ceramic and glass.[2]
He was trained as a sculptor by his father, Harald Quistgaard (1887-1979), and was later educated as a drawer and silversmith at the technical school in Copenhagen.[3]
During the occupation of Denmark he was active in the
Resistance movement.[citation needed]
Work
Quistgaard started his career drawing portraits. He also produced jewellery, hunting knives, ceramic works, glass and graphic design in the form of monograms, town arms and the like. At the end of the 1940s his production also included cutlery in silver and steel for different companies, amongst others the silvery cutlery set Champagne (1947 for O.V. Mogensen) and kitchen utensils in steel for
Raadvad [
da], including the little shark fin can opener from 1950. His breakthrough as an industrial designer came in 1953–54, where he fashioned the cutlery set Fjord, the first cutlery set that combined stainless steel with handles of teak.
Around the same time he designed a saucepan in cast iron for De Forenede Jernstoeberier A/S (United Iron Foundries). The pan was marketed under the name Anker-Line and was awarded the gold medal at the
Triennale in Milan in 1954. In the same year, Quistgaard also received the
Lunning Prize. 1954 was also the year American business people
Ted Nierenberg and
Martha Nierenberg visited Europe, on the lookout for talented design which could be launched in the USA. After having seen the cutlery set Fjord at the
Danish Museum of Art and Design in Copenhagen, they sought out the designer, and their meeting led to the foundation of the American company Dansk Designs with Quistgaard as chief designer.[4]
Already towards the end of 1954, Fjord was introduced in New York, followed the year after by the colourful saucepan range Kobenstyle. Quistgaards designs were a big success from the beginning in the US and were quickly followed by a series of tableware and kitchenware designs: cutlery in silver and handcrafted steel; jugs and saucepans in steel, copper and cast iron; crockery in stoneware; glass; trays, bowls, pepper mills and other objects in staved teak and exotic wood sorts, as well as candlesticks in brass, silver and cast iron.
Quistgaard was hugely productive and for Danish Designs alone fashioned more than 4000 products.[5] It is a production which spans a large range of materials and utility items, and which is created from a philosophy that utility items for the kitchen and the table should function together harmoniously. To set the table and arrange with Quistgaard's designs became from the end of the 1950s and during the 1960s identical with "modern living" and
Scandinavian style.[6] Where clean lines, sculptural form and natural materials went hand in hand.
Significant designs and later life
The end of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s were Quistgaard's most productive years for Dansk Designs. In 1958 he designed the cutlery set Toke in steel and bamboo as well as the dinner set Flamestone in stoneware; the cutlery set Tjorn in sterling silver from 1959, the Festivaal line from 1960 of lacquered bowls and trays in many colors, together with a series of industrial designs in exotic wood sorts, Rare Woods from 1961. The series together with the other woodware was produced by Nissens Woodworking Factory in Denmark, which Quistgaard also designed special works for in the 1960s, amongst others the unusual Stick chair from 1966.[7]
At the end of the 1950s Quistgaard began designing and overseeing the construction of a large villa in
Armonk, north of New York, for his American business partner Ted Nierenberg. Quistgaard designed everything, from the large roof constructions and window sections to the doorhandles, bathtub and spiral staircase. The villa was completed in 1961 as a demonstration of Quistgaard's ideal about architectural wholeness.
Quistgaard's success escalated throughout the 1960s. His works for Dansk Designs were marketed in all major cities in the US, but he was also successful in Europe and Japan. Dansk Designs started their own shop in the High Street in Copenhagen, in London and in Stockholm, and Quistgaard's designs were exhibited and sold in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Zürich, Melbourne, Johannesburg and many other big cities.
Quistgaard continued as chief designer for Dansk Designs until the start of the 1980s, when he moved to Rome. He lived there until 1993, and returned to Denmark, where he continued to design until a few months before his death in 2008. In 2006 he received an honorary grant from the
Danmarks Nationalbank's Anniversary Fund of 1968, and in 2009 was portrayed as a person and as a designer in the documentary film A Saucepan for My Wife.[8]
Quistgaard died at age 88 on January 4, 2008, at his home "Strandgaarden" near
Vordingborg, Denmark. He was survived by a daughter, a son and several grandchildren.[9] He is buried in Gimlinge Cemetery.
The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Indianapolis Museum of Art
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Denver Art Museum, Colorado
Das Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin
GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig
Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig
Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Oldenburg
The Louvre, Paris
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Kirkland Mueum of Fine & Decorative Art, Denver, Colorado
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
The RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Exhibitions
Charlottenborg spring 1947, 1951–52, 1956
Milan Triennial 1954
Habitations nouvelles, Paris 1955
Annual exhibitions of Danish Arts and Crafts Association, 1940s-60s
The Lunning Prize Designers' Exhibition, New York 1957
DH '58: Design for the Home, Brooklyn Museum, March 05 - April 27, 1958
Danish Arts and Crafts, Stockholm 1959
The Arts of Denmark, USA 1960-61
Formes danoises: L'art de l'intérieur au Danemark, Exposition itinérante, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon/Palais de la Bourse, Marseille/Musèe Maison de la Culture, Le Havre/Palais des Beaux-Arts. Lille/Galerie Municipale des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, 1964-1965
Two Centuries of Danish Design, Victoria & Albert Museum, London 1968
Lerchenborg, separate exhibition 1969
Masterworks – 100 years of Danish furniture-making, Kronborg 2000
A Century of Design, Part III, 1950-1975 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001
Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, Images of Denmark, 2002
Danish Museum of Art and Design, Copenhagen, 2004
Danmarks Nationalbank, Retrospective exhibition, 2006
What Was Good Design, MoMA's Message 1944-56, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 6, 2009- Jan 10, 2011
Danish Design - I Like It, Designmuseum Denmark, Copenhagen 2011
Danish Modern: Design for Living, Goldstein Museum of Design, Minnesota 2014 and Figge Art Museum, Iova 2015
DANSK - Design by Jens Quistgaard, Retrospective exhibition, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015-16
Much More Than One Good Chair, Design & Gesellschaft in Dänemark, Nordische Botschaften, Berlin 2017
einfach gut. Design aus Dänemark, Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus, Berlin 2018-19
The Value of Good Design, MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Feb.10-Jun.15, 2019
Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890-1980, Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin, 2020
Selected works
Champagne flatware. Silver. O.V. Mogensen 1947
Tea set and coffee set. Sterling silver, handwrought. Hermann Jacobsen o. 1948
Reif, Rita. "Accessories Designed by Dane Proving Popular in U.S. Homes; Jens Quistgaard, Son of Noted Sculptor, a Born Craftsman", The New York Times, October 10, 1958.
The New York Times, September 22, 1961
Film
The Designer Jens Quistgaard: A Saucepan for My Wife. A Documentary Film by Stig Guldberg.
DVD + booklet 55 p. ABCFilm, Denmark 2009.
ISBN978-87-7955-771-0
^Jens Quistgaard himself disproved the belief that he was an apprentice at silversmith Georg Jensens's workshop: "At technical school, I had a great drawing teacher, who was employed by Georg Jensen", he said, "but there was never more than that" Guldberg, S.(2011) p. 60
^"According to official records, more than 4.500 individual pieces designed by the late Jens H Quistgaard went into production in his lifetime. From boats to cooking pots, from knives to chairs - at the peak of his career in the 1960s and 1970s, Quistgaard was the most prolific Danish designer around. His products far outsold those of contemporaries including
Hans Wegner,
Arne Jacobsen and
Finn Juhl", Bagner, A. (2008), p. 131. Cf. Perlson, M. (2008), p. 8 and Koelln. G. (1982)
^Form - fra tønder til trend, Kulturhistorisk Museum Randers, 2009
^The Designer Jens Quistgaard: A Saucepan for My Wife. A documentary film by Stig Guldberg. ABCFilm, Denmark 2009. The film premiered in January 2010 at
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark.