Grete Jalk

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Grete Juel Jalk (born June 18, 1920 in Copenhagen ; † 2006 ) was a Danish furniture designer , author and co-editor of the Danish magazine Mobilia .

Life

Grete Jalk was the daughter of the teacher Axel Julius Jalk (1891–1945) and Ingrid Karla Tuxen Hansen (1886–1985). After graduating from higher education, she first enrolled at the University of Copenhagen to study philosophy and law, which she broke off and instead attended the Tegne og Kunstindustriskolen for Kvinder ( German  arts and crafts school for women ) for a year . Jalk then did an apprenticeship with the carpenter Karen Margrethe Conradsen from 1940 to 1943. She then attended the Danish design school Danmarks Designskole until 1946 . She received further lessons from Kaare Klint at the “Furniture Art and Interior Design” department of the Royal Danish Academy of Art .

Jalk won first prize in the Copenhagen Carpenter's Guild annual competition in 1946. In 1947 Jalk designed a series of pieces of furniture for the self-supporting woman's den , the "bachelorette party" of the self-sufficient, independent modern woman, with a sofa bed, wall-mounted storage space and a desk, which can be combined as a bedroom and study for working women was designed.

Jalk took part in the annual competitions of the Designmuseum Danmark and the furniture department of the Copenhagen Design School, where she also taught from 1950 to 1960. In 1953 Jalk opened her own design studio. Inspired by the laminated and curved plywood models of Alvar Aalto and Charles Eames , she designed her own curved furniture. Although these were in demand for exhibitions and collections, general interest in their unconventional models developed slowly.

In 1963, the English newspaper Daily Mirror launched a competition to design a chair for men and one for women. Jalk received its first international recognition here when she won both prizes for her Origami- reminiscent He-chair and She-chair made of molded plywood. The furniture manufacturer Poul Jeppesen had made some prototypes of this, but the project had to be terminated when they were lost in a fire. The Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired the She Chair from the competition for its collection that same year .

In addition to this experimental work, Jalk shaped a lot of simple furniture for a variety of manufacturers, including a standing desk and stool, a series of Oregon pine shelves, and a series of chairs with upholstered seats and backs on a curved steel frame. Their industrially manufactured furniture had pleasantly clear lines. The pieces were particularly suitable for fast, uncomplicated production processes, and the economical use of materials made them affordable. Some of their product lines were made by manufactories in the United States and Finland .

For the modern household of the mid-century modern , she designed a wall system in 1961, a living room with a coffee table in 1962, and the watch and listen furniture in 1963 . With Poul Jeppesen she implemented numerous furniture designs, including plywood furniture such as a side chair from 1962. In 1964, she designed the tubular steel Easy Chair for the furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen . She also designed wallpapers and fabric samples (for example for Unika Væv ) as well as silverware for the Georg Jensen company .

International exhibitions at which Jalk presented her work included the Triennale di Milano (Milan 1951); Vijftig jaar zitten ( Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam 1966); Two centuries of Danish Design (London 1968); Women in Design ( Design Center Stuttgart 1989 and Berlin 1990) and Plywood: Material, Process, Form (2011–2013) and Designing Modern Women 1890–1990 (2013–2014), both in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Jalk was with Gunnar Bratvold from 1956 to 1962 and after his death again from 1968 to 1974 co-editor of the design magazine Mobilia . For ten years she devoted herself to the creation of a comprehensive, four-volume publication entitled Dansk møbelkunst gennem 40 år. Københavns Snedkerlaugs møbeludstillinger ( 40 years of Danish furniture design. Furniture exhibitions by the Copenhagen Carpenters' Guild ), published in 1987. In the 1970s she worked for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for which she put together a traveling exhibition on the subject of Danish design . From 1981 to 1983 she was a member of the board of Dansk Designråd ( Danish Design Council ) and in 1977 and 1979 to 1987 its jury for the ID-prize . In 1990 she received the Statens Kunstfonds ( State Art Fund ) award .

After Jalk's death in 2006, the Copenhagen Royal Academy of Fine Arts ( Danish Det Kongelige Akademi for de Skønne Kunster ) created the Grete-Jalk-Legatet , a scholarship for promising students of furniture design.

See also

literature

  • Bodil Kjær: Grete Jalk, the Grande Dame of Danish Design. UN, 1990, 10 pp.
  • Scandinavian Review, Volume 78, American Scandinavian Foundation, 1990, pp. 142ff.
  • Michael Ellison: Scandinavian Modern Furnishing, 1930-1970. Designed for life. Schiffer Publishing, 2002, ISBN 978-0-76431-492-6 , p. 77.

Web links

Commons : Grete Jalk  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Søren Sass: Grete Jalk (1920–2006). In: Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon .
  2. ↑ a b Grete Jalk: A short biography. In: forestlondon.com of May 26, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Great Danish Designers 101: Grete Jalk. vintagehomeboutique.ca from November 9, 2016
  4. ↑ a b c d Grete Jalk (1920–2006) In: retroobsessions.com of December 29, 2013.
  5. ↑ a b c Grete Jalk. Denmark. In: pamono.ca from
  6. ↑ Grete Jalk. In: langeproduction.com
  7. ^ Johnathan Woodham: A Dictionary of Modern Design. Oxford University Press, 2004. Entry Jalk, Grete .
  8. ↑ Grete Jalk. Danish, 1920-2006. In: Museum of Modern Art .
  9. ↑ The Woman That Revolutionized Scandinavian Design: Grete Jalk. In: midcenturyhome.com of July 10, 2015.
  10. ↑ Møbelstuderende løb med Grete Jalk legatet 2014. In: Royal Academy of Fine Arts .
personal data
SURNAME Jalk, Grete
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jalk, Grete Juel (maiden name); GJ
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish furniture designer, author and editor
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH 2006