JENS HARALD QUISTGAARD (born 1919 in Copenhagen, died 2008 in Vordingborg, Denmark) was a Danish sculptor and designer, known principally for his work for the American company Dansk Designs, where he was chief designer from 1954 and for the following three decades.
Though a sculptor and grounded in traditional handicrafts, he quickly established a career as an industrial designer. 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.
In 1958, he received the Neiman Marcus Award and during the following years he was represented at major museums in Europe and the USA. Many of Jens Quistgaard's works are still produced today.
Jens Quistgaard grew up in an artistic home in Copenhagen and already as a boy, demonstrated unusual artistic talents. He was trained as a sculptor by his father, Harald Quistgaard (1887-1979), and was later educated as a drawer and silversmith at the technical school in Copenhagen. During the occupation of Denmark he was active in the Resistance movement.
At the end of the 1940s his production also included cutlery in silver and steel for different companies. His breakthrough as an industrial designer came in 1953–54, where he fashioned the cutlery set Fjord, the first cutlery set that combined stainless steel with handles of teak.
In 1954, Quistgaard received the Lunning Prize. It was also the year American businessman Ted Nierenberg visited Europe, on the lookout for talented design which could be launched in the USA. After having seen the cutlery set Fjord at the Danish Museum of Art and Design in Copenhagen, he sought out the designer, and their meeting led to the foundation of the American company Dansk Designs with Quistgaard as chief designer.
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.
Quistgaard was hugely productive and for Danish Designs alone fashioned more than 4000 products. It is a production which spans a large range of materials and utility items, and which is created from a philosophy that utility items for the kitchen and the table should function together harmoniously. 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. Where clean lines, sculptural form and natural materials went hand in hand.
Quistgaard's success escalated throughout the 1960s. His works for Dansk Designs were marketed in all major cities in the US, but he was also successful in Europe and Japan. Dansk Designs started their own shop in the High Street in Copenhagen, in London and in Stockholm, and Quistgaard's designs were exhibited and sold in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Zürich, Melbourne, Johannesburg and many other big cities.
Quistgaard continued as chief designer for Dansk Designs until the start of the 1980s, when he moved to Rome. He lived there until 1993, and returned to Denmark, where he continued to design until a few months before his death in 2008. In 2006 he received an honorary grant from the Danish National Banks 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'.
