Hermann Jünger

Bio

German jewellery designer Hermann Jünger (1928–2005) is one of the most important and most influential 20th-century jewellery designers. He was one of the pioneers who granted jewellery a whole new status. He studied at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie, Hanau, and was Professor of Goldsmithing at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich.

Statement

A piece of brick or scrap of rusted metal or plastic has no less value or standing than some expensively worked artifact made of the most costly materials – provided of course that each possesses the power and expressiveness of a fully accomplished form x Found treasures and jewelry pieces united – connections, parallels, correspondences: one thing referring to the other.

Jünger’s work starts with his watercolours and line drawings, which are already very good. The drawings are used to find new ideas and capture a sense of spontaneity that would be hard to get if all of the experimentation was done by making the jewellery. Junger’s growth owes little to other jewellers and a lot to a German painter named Julius Bissier. Bissier’s fluid, almost oriental compositions showed how Junger wanted his own work to make people feel and think.

His work is expressive because of two aspects of Bauhaus design: the tendency to keep things simple and adding a freer, sometimes more playful element. Paul Klee is a hidden guide. Junger makes art out of gold and other precious materials. He uses shapes that are almost religious and reminds us of the ornaments used by pre-Christian and pre-classical cultures.