About Hans Bunde

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In 1954, Hans Bunde carved a penguin for each of his daughters. He kept it simple: an elongated body, a beak drawn to a point, and the sharp line where black paint meets bare wood.

In that reduction lies its precision: just enough form to be unmistakable. The painted back stands in for feathers, the unpainted chest for the white belly, and the grain of the beech shows through exactly where Bunde left it alone. A few lines and a single material contrast are enough to make the figure instantly recognisable.

Produced today by ARCHITECTMADE, Penguin comes to LUMAS in three sizes — Mini (13 cm), Small (18 cm) and Large (26 cm) — each figure individually carved in beech wood and hand-painted.

VITA

Hans Bunde (1919–1996) was a Danish silversmith who spent his career turning restraint into a craft.

Trained at Carl M. Cohr from 1937 to 1941, he returned to the silverworks a decade later, in 1951, this time as a designer, and spent the following years defining its shape and character. The Swedish silversmith Wiwen Nilsson and Danish Functionalism left a lasting mark on him: sculptural curves, balanced proportions, decoration kept to a minimum.

Wood entered his work almost by accident, through pieces made for his own family rather than for sale. Penguin, carved in 1954, is the clearest of them: a silhouette, four flowing lines, unmistakable from across the room.