Georg Jensen: Scandinavian Design for Living

Great coffee table book on the design house. Just a note: it has none of the iconic jewelry pieces, only functional designs.

Very crisp pictures!

Made an impressive gift

A very readable and enjoyable book on Georg Jensen houseware rather than the jewellery that the name is more famous for. Though the book is probably three-quarters excellent photos of the companies output over the decades there are three illustrated essays, two (by Alison Fletcher and Maggie Taft) consider the company in relation to Scandinavian design especially during the forties to the sixties when design from these four northern European countries spread around the world. Another essay is by Thomas Thulstrup, a very much a reduced version of his excellent 2004 published history of the company (ISBN 8712041300). The beautiful still-life photos are in fact in color (printed with a two hundred screen) though they give the appearance of being in black and white, silverware photographed against a white background would always look like this. The pieces are dated from 1905 to 1990. The back pages have an illustrated chronology of the company followed by a very comprehensive listing of all the items in the 2018 Art Institute of Chicago exhibition that is the basis for this book. I thought this was an excellent visual review of the Jensen company that has to be considered an important part of Scandinavian creativity. Look inside the book at Westread Book Reviews then click 2020 and July.

What I liked? Quick service, the book was delivered to the indicated address exactly on time and was exactly as described and advertised. What I didn't like? Nothing really, everything was exactly as I would have expected. I can't really say too much about the content of the book as it was a gift and the subject matter is completely outside of my sphere of interests and not something I really know enough to comment on.

I was expecting the jug not a book, that was my mistake as I clearly didn't look at it properly