Jens Quistgaard

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.

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.

He also produced jewellery, hunting knives, ceramic works, glass and graphic design in the form of monograms, town arms and the like.

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.

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.

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.

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.