I was trawling through either Pinterest or Instagram recently (I can’t remember which) and came across some very beautiful, Scandi-looking, brutalist jewellery. It turns out that it was made by a company called Kordes & Lichtenfels. Despite finding extensive examples of their designs online (not all mid-century modernist in design as the ones we’ve chosen to highlight above), there’s sketchy information available about the company or its jewellery designers.
Founded in Germany in 1884 and based in the famed jewellery-making centre of Pforzheim, Kordes & Lichtenfels were manufacturers of deluxe jewellery fashioned from gold, silver and rolled gold with semi-precious stones. In the 1970s, the company evolved into Merz Export GmbH and, from 2017, another company Andreas Daub took over the production.
There are lots of pieces of Kordes & Lichtenfels jewellery available for sale on eBay and Etsy.
Sometimes, it’s when you’re researching something completely unrelated that a titbit of information comes your way!
That was the case when I discovered that it was Peter Guggenbühler (1928-2007) who was responsible for the series of porcelain decanters for Altenkunstadt that we sold in the past (shown at the top of our montage above).
As well as the decanters, he designed the Das Variabile range of stylised animal figures. They each have detachable stained wood and ceramic eyes and each was given a name:
AJAX & BEJAX
Lion – “Zottl”
Alligator – “Fafnir”
Rabbit – “Guggi”
Owl – “Huhu”
Snail – Schlurf”
Frog – “Herr Q”
Cat – “Killer”
Hippo – “Hippo”
Crow – Krah”
In addition he has created vases, wall plaques and small-scale sculptures.
In 2014, there was a posthumous exhibition of his work at Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, Germany. It was entitled “Vom Umgang mit Porzellan, Elefanten und anderen Kreaturen – der Keramiker Peter Guggenbühler” which roughly translates as “The handling of porcelain, elephants and other creatures – the ceramist Peter Guggenbühler”. Here’s how the marketing material described it:
In its spring exhibition, the Staufen Ceramics Museum commemorates Peter Guggenbühler (1928-2008), who, after initial successes in Saarbrücken, returned to his hometown of Karlsruhe in 1961 and was one of the most respected representatives of his field in Baden-Württemberg in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Of course he didn’t behave like the proverbial elephant in a china shop, he loved the material too much for that. But he has thoroughly confused the expectations associated with porcelain. Instead of pleasing figures, he has all sorts of bizarre creatures that are clearly descended from elephants, crocodiles, rats and various horned and antlered animals, but which clearly show human traits and behaviour.
In addition to small sculptures, Guggenbühler created reliefs and tiles in which he opened up other venues for human comedy, such as theatres and pulpits. An artist with exuberant imagination who is worth rediscovering!
Check Etsy for items occasionally popping up for sale.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Luigi Colani was an Italian designer. In fact, he was born Lutz Colani in Berlin, in 1928.
Our first introduction to Luigi Colani was the plastic Drumbo money boxes (seen top) that were given away to customers when they opened an account with Dresdner Bank. However, it’s a much-repeated mistake attributing the design to Colani. In fact, the plastic money boxes (later also available in porcelain and metal) were created by Bernd Diefenbach in 1972.
Anyway, we digress. He may not have designed the elephants, however, what didn’t he design? Name any type of product, and Colani has turned his hand to creating a version. Furniture, glassware, sanitary ware, cutlery, fashion, watches, eyewear, cars, boats, planes and even cash machines.
We’re so taken with the sanitary ware that he designed in the 1975 for Villeroy and Boch – we added a few images in our collage above. It was produced in a number of colourways that were popular at the time – green, pink, orange, blue… If we had the right house and came across a salvaged suite for sale, we’d design our entire bathroom around it – it’s absolutely magnificent!
He had a long, varied and successful career collaborating with a number of companies creating over 5,000 product designs. They can be counted on to be colourful, curvaceous, organic, exciting and futuristic!
Here are just a few from the 60s to the 80s:
1968: Loop chair for Poly-COR (pictured above)
1968: Orbis modular seating for Cor
1968: Garden Party chair for Heinz Essmann
1969 Elmar desk for Flötotto
1970: Sadima lounge chair for BASF (4 versions pictured above)
1971: Drop Tea Service for Rosenthal (white set, pictured above)
1972: Zocker chair for Top-System Burkhard Lübke (2 (one yellow, one orange) pictured above)
1973: Tulip armchair for Lusch Germany (pictured above)
1981: Zen tea service for Melitta Friesland (black set, pictured above)
1982: Pelikan №1, №2, and P80 ballpoint pen in various colours (pictured above)
Colani died at the age of 91 in 2019.
2000 – Luigi Colani sitting on a wooden parquet floor of his design with a striking 3D wave appearance
Renate Rhein (1925-2020) was born in Hoya on the Weser. She began her working life as a paintress. From 1954, Rhein worked for Rosenthal – a company for whom Bjørn Wiinblad and Wolf Karnagel also designed.
In 1960, she taught herself ceramics and established a studio of her own in Worpswede in 1961.
The piece that first drew my attention to Rhein was one of her sun plaques. Aren’t they stunning?! Then I found this amazing tiled table of hers on Pamono.
Check out Etsy and eBay for pieces of hers that are for sale.
Any further information about Rhein is hard to come by; the tiny image below is the only one I could find of her online. If you can expand our knowledge, please comment below!
