| She graced the cover of "Vogue" – that was in the '50s, which suited her Nefertite-like beauty so well. That was when she conquered Paris with her unusual, precious jewelry that flattered the female figure with its organic shapes. She knew Picasso well. She used to collect stones on the beach at Antibes and combined them with silver, the classic Scandinavian jewelry material. Which is where she originally hailed from. To be more precise Vivianna Bülow-Hübe (born 1927), whose artistic name was Torun, came from Malmö, from a family of artists and architects. |
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She trained at the Konstfackskolan in Stockholm before leaving her home country. She was never interested in conventions. In Paris she designed jewelry for, among others, Billie Holiday and she moved in the "inner circle" of the art-, fashion- , and jazz world with Picasso, Braque, Miro, Calder, Juliette Greco, Edith Piaf, Brigitte Bardot … She was the first woman to become world famous as a silversmith.
Georg Jensen, the Copenhagen silversmiths, has been producing her creations since 1967. Torun's works are on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Montréal, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Le Louvre in Paris, The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London, and in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.
Following a stint in Wolfsburg (1968-1978), came Indonesia: For almost 25 years Torun lived and worked in Jakarta, where she initially realized a pilot social project for children on behalf of the Swedish government. She recently returned to Copenhagen where, it became known recently, she died on July 3rd.
Munich has fond memories of the Grande Dame of Scandinavian jewelry art, who even in old age managed to retain her great beauty: Just a few years ago she attended a lecture on goldsmithy given by Prof. Otto Künzli at the Munich Academy and donated to the Neue Sammlung pieces of jewelry that have been on display in the Danner Rotunda in the Pinakothek der Moderne since March 2004.
* Jewelry Arts in the Pinakothek der Moderne: Vivianna
Torun Bülow-Hübe, Necklace, 1959
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