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Vivianna Torun Bulow-Hube, a Swedish silversmith and designer, is known for her ground breaking approach to jewellery and tableware design.
Above: Vivianna Torun-Hube 1960's amethyst and crystal Scandinavian silver necklace
Born in 1927 Vivianna Torun Bulow-Hube studied at the National College of Craft and Design in Stockholm, before opening her studio in 1951.
During a trip to Paris in 1956, she was interested by the early artifacts on display at the Musee de L'Homme. She then designed jewellery with Egyptian amulets.
Torun decided to remain and work in France. She married an African-American painter Walter Coleman, and though him became friends with the expatriate Black community.
Above: Vivianna Torun-Hube crystal quartz and silver pendant
She designed rutilated quartz silver necklaces and moss agate pendants and earrings for Billy Holiday. Billy wore these jewellery pieces during her singing work at the Mars Club and other European jazz clubs in the late fifties.
From 1954-68 Torun's jewellery was displayed at the Galerie du Siecle in St Germain-des-Pres. As she repeated some of the designs later for Georg Jensen, some of Torun's jewellery bears Danish hallmarks, and others French and Swedish hallmarks..
Her work focused on sculptural body art, and silver mobiles for the shoulders and neck. A 1959 design snaked around the thoat with rutilated quartz carefully balanced on each end.
She set a large piece of overlay glass by Edward Hald of Orrefors into a silver bracelet.
In 1960 she was the winner of the Lunning prize.
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Above: Vivianna Torun-Hube for Jensen spiral silver ear pendants
From 1968-78 she moved her studio to Wolfburg in Germany where she undertook work as a freelance designer for Georg Jensen.
Torun is the designer for some the most famous Georg Jensen jewellery pieces, including 'The Vivianna / Open Watch', "Mobius"' 'Beans', "Hidden Heart " and 'Forget me knot'.
She is the second most renowned Georg Jensen designer, after Jensen himself.
After being invited to teach young people jewellery techniques in Indonesia, Torun opened another studio in Djakarta in 1978.
In Java she was know as Vivianna and spent time on the beaches looking for shells and objects for her jewellery.
Torun's jewelry was inspired by natural shapes such as leaves, flowers, swirls and the flow of water.
It is described as minimalist , sober and simple.
Torun has gained acclaim for her ability to shape seemingly solid materials into flexible forms in jewellery.
She did not use valuable gemstones, preferring instead granite, pebbles, rock crystal, moonstone, mother or pearl, horn, and quartz. In 2002, after being diagnosed with leukaemia, she left Indonesia to live with her daughter Marcia in Denmark until her death in 2004 at the age of 76.
