Nanna Ditzel

Nanna Ditzel (1923-2005, b. Copenhagen) was trained as a cabinetmaker before she entered the School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In 1946, she graduated from the Royal Academy with a degree in furniture design.

In 1943, Nanna met Jorgen Ditzel at the Academy, whom she would later marry. The following year, the pair exhibited together at the annual Copenhagen Cabinetmaker’s Guild exhibition, at the age of 20 and 22, while Nanna was still only in her first year at the academy. Within their first years as nascent designers, the couples’ work was exhibited next to Finn Juhl, due to the couple’s clear affinity with the older designer’s sensibility.

Finn Juhl represented a more free world than the one I know from the academy, a larger wold. It was his entire attitude. He was not a craftsman but a man of the world with an eye for everything interesting in life.”

This “desire for freedom” followed Ditzel throughout her career, during the years leading up to Jorgen’s untimely death in 1961, and in the years following, when she worked within multiple disciplines to continue the work the couple had started.

Ditzel had an active practice up until her own death in 2005; she was always focused on using new materials and techniques, driven by that “desire for freedom.” Ditzel worked in various materials such as fiberglass, wicker work, and foam rubber, and in several disciplines such as cabinet-making, jewelry, tableware, applied art and textiles for which she was awarded numerous international prizes.

Nanna Ditzel

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