Henning Koppel

Denmark 1918-1981

Henning Koppel was educated a painter and a sculptor but his international fame came as a silver smith. He was employed by Georg Jensen in 1946, and his artistic expression is shown both in large sculptural bowls, jewellery and cuttlery. He considered himself a anti-functionalist, and reacted strongly to the dominant ideal of the time. At the first glance, Koppel?s corpus silver might look uncomplicated and simple, but it demanded the highest skilled craftsmen to execute it. Henning Koppel worked spontaniously and inspired by the moment. He was totally uninterested of the surrounding critics or peoples demands of mass production, he focused on the art of pure beauty. To him functionalism was not possible to applicate on silver as a material. Aesthetics came above functionalism according to Henning Koppel, who used an organic expression with soft, fluent lines.