Kim Buck: It's the Thought That Counts

Kim Buck made a name for himself early in his career for colorful jewelry made of aluminum. An inexpensive industrial material like aluminum was unusual for jewelry, but it was a natural choice considering his background.

He was born in Odense in 1957 but grew up in Thisted, where his father ran a metal products company with aluminum as its specialty. The workshop was right next to their house and Kim Buck felt more at home there than he did at school. Making something with his own hands has always been an important motivation for him. Though he was familiar with aluminum as a material from childhood, there was nothing in his background that suggested he would become a goldsmith. He himself gives a television program about a silversmith the honor for how he found his profession. In 1978, at the age of 21, he was apprenticed to Gilbert Pretzmann in Århus. Their work mostly involved repairing jewelry, but it gave him technical training and especially important insight into people’s relationship to jewelry. The apprenticeship also included fixed periods of instruction at the department of gold and silver at the Copenhagen Technical Academy.

He finished his training in 1982, and that same year he received an award in the Danish Jewelers’ Association design competition for a piece of jewelry for a man. It  was made of silver and ivory and consisted of triangular shapes that partly overlapped like a stylized mountain landscape. It was intended primarily to be attached to the top of the breast pocket, as an alternative to the conventional pocket handkerchief.

Despite his success, Kim Buck was not tempted to start his own company right away. For a year he worked at the Atelje Max Pollinger in Munich, Germany. It was a stimulating year for his skills, his artistry, and his personal development. Although Max Pollinger was a jeweler, he had a very open mind when it came to the use of materials, and the scope of his commissions was completely different from what Kim Buck was accustomed to in Denmark. Customers might buy jewelry worth millions of Danish crowns, and he also helped make garden fountains for them. In the workshop he sat next to the german silversmith Rudolph Bott, who became a good friend. Their discussions frequently touched on films and art, and in their free time they went to the opera.

From 1983 to 1985, Kim Buck completed the two year advanced course in Copenhagen at what is now called Institut for Ædelmetal. Like so many others at the time, he used all kinds of materials, from cement and rubber to the new aerospace metal, titanium. He had to try everything, not just materials but also types of objects. He made clocks, lamps, glasses, and various kinds of jewelry. He graduated with honors and attracted considerable media attention for his graduate project, which comprised fascinating tops and ingenious ballpoint pens that simultaneously served as jewelry.

After he completed his training, Kim Buck’s career got an additional boost when he joined the workshop of a more established designer and silversmith, Allan Scharff. While he shared workshop facilities there, he helped Ole Bent Petersen work on commissions and jewelry that he was making. Ole Bent Petersen was an early rebel in Danish jewelry circles. Influenced by pop art, he created narrative and witty jewelry as early as the 1960s and 1970s. Frequent motifs were everyday objects and phenomena such as underwear, “turn tickets,” houses,  and interiors, while his choice of materials – precious stones, gold, and silver – provided effective contrasts.

“Ole provoked me and pushed me and confronted me. It was really good support and help,” says Kim Buck today of their work together. Even though their visual languages were completely different, it is not difficult to see a certain kinship in their approach to the medium of jewelry and their underlying humor. Kim Buck held his first one-man show at Gallerie Metal in Copenhagen in 1987. The gallery, founded by Jan Lohmann and Peder Musse in 1978, was Denmark’s most important forum for new jewelry art at the time.

/ Excerpt of the text Goldsmith and Jewelry Artist by Joruun Veiteberg