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Henning Koppel is responsible for what we have come to think of as “Danish design".
Koppel was an earlier pioneer of functionalism in design: his mission was to make everyday life products beautiful as well as practical. He was trained as a sculptor and began collaborating with Georg Jensen in 1946.
Henning Koppel is born to a wealthy Jewish family and showed an early talent for art, leading him to train in both drawing and aquarelle early on. He continued studies in sculpture at the Royal Danish Academy and later in Paris, wher he became aware of currents in avant-garde sculpture. His superb drafting skills, developed as a child, helped him in to produce outstanding product renderings of his designs. Even on their own, they form an exceptional body of work.
Like many Danish Jews, Koppel fled to Sweden during the Second World War. At 27, he returned and began working at Georg Jensen, which marked his start in jewellery, hollowware and flatware design. His first works – a series of necklaces and linked bracelets resembling whale vertebrae and microscopic organisms - were small masterpieces in imaginative modelling. Henning Koppel was in every way groundbreaking and his jewellery was unlike anything ever created at the silver smithy in its first 40 years.
During his life, he won many awards including the Milan Triennial, the International Design Award and the Lunning Prize. Koppel’s masterful understanding of the intrinsic nature of materials enabled him to produce exquisite metalware with a remarkable sculptural plasticity and sensuous organic form. With their highly polished reflective surfaces and asymmetrical lines, these designs came to epitomize the idiom of post-war Scandinavian design.
People still choose to wear a watch by Henning Koppel or use his cutlery. The integrity and appeal of his designs remain vital and undiminished.
