Your shopping cart is empty!
One of the most important figures in Finish jewellery design Elis Kauppi’s vision of a new jewellery style inspired a generation of designers and launched Finland onto the international jewellery design scene.
In 1945, in Turku, Finland at the age of 24 , Kauppi started his renowned jewellery workshop named Kupittaan Kulta. He was part of a young group of makers which would forever change the face of jewellery design. Kauppi's drive to innovate originated from the difficult circumstances of the war and a desire to break out of the usual standards of jewellery design of that time. The War and the Innovation of the Kupittaan Kulta Workshop
Finnish jewellery ingenuity was greatly tested during the second world war and it was reported that even when glass beads and stones were hard to obtain during the war that the Kupittan Kulta workshop melted down coloured pin heads to provide jewellery accents and Finish granite was upgraded to a precious stone. Below : L to Right: Kupitaan Kulta jewellery including silver and amethyst flower pendant, the "Mountain Stream" necklace and a modernist Kupittan Kulta brooch
Elis Kauppi was one of the first designers to use local stones such as spectrolite and granite. Spectrolite is related to labradorite , a feldspar which is quarried and cut in Ylamaa, Finland. It is a dark blue stone with an iridescent schiller which looks superb in silver settings. These materials were incorporated into original designs in an innnovative and fresh manner. The exciting results attracted worldwide attention.
Kauppi, representing Finland, started exhibiting internationally in the 1950's winning prestigious awards. His "Mountain Stream" necklace which featured cascading bubbles of spectrolite and rock crystals was an example of his original craftsmanship. The anvil benchmark beside the Turku town stamp are identifying marks for this designer and his company.
Attention to simplicity and form was at the heart of Kauppi's jewellery designs .Kauppi’s designs emphasised abstraction, and being a true modernist he he rejected the previously popular naturalistic forms of the forties which focused on flower and leaf type designs. With great emphasis on craftsmanship his strong and bold jewellery designs remain strikingly relevant to this day.
