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]
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.
Book: Drucker . Janet . Georg Jensen, A Tradition of Splendid Silver . 2001 . Schiffer Publications . Atglen, PA . A New Market: Georg Jensen Silver in the United States.
Moro . Ginger . Behind the Scenes at Georg Jensen USA: The War Years . Silver Magazine . November 1996 . 28–34.
Book: Jenssen . Victoria . The Art of Carol Janeway: A Tile & Ceramics Career with Georg Jensen Inc. and Ossip Zadkine in 1940s Manhattan . 2022 . Friesen Press . Ch.3: Georg Jensen Inc, Frederik Lunning, and Carol Janeway.
Book: Janet Drucker . Nancy Schiffer . Jensen Silver: The American Designs . 2008 . Schiffer Publishing . Atglen, PA . 7–11 . Georg Jensen, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Georg Jensen Inc USA.
Book: Taylor . David A. . Georg Jensen Jewelry . 2005 . Yale University Press for the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts.