Nordic Art Medal Series

The Nordisk Kunstmedalje Serie (Nordic Art Medal Series), consisting of 110 different medals in editions that totalled some 420,000 pieces, was struck for only a decade between 1973 and 1983. Although the main series celebrated the Nordic lands of Greenland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Faroe Islands, there were other sub-series that themed the Baltic Sea Islands, the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, the life and work of Hans Christian Andersen, the Signs of the Zodiac, the Danish Royal Society for the Protection of Animals and Henrik Ibsen. The medals were predominantly designed and sculpted by leading Scandinavian artists of the time, and some of them are unique as the only medal work that these artists ever created.

This collection was instigated by the Danish artist, sculptor, writer, publisher and entrepreneur Anders Nyborg. Born in Copenhagen in 1934, Nyborg was already a significant figure in Danish culture, having established the art and architecture publishing house of Anders Nyborg International A/S in 1957 as well as a career as an art dealer. In 1972 Nyborg attended a Finnish Independence Day reception at which he saw an exhibition of medallic art by such well-known medallists as Kauko Räsänen and Raimo Heino and was impressed by characteristics of their work such as precision of design, high relief modelling and selective burnishing. Aware of the success of traditional Danish porcelain plate series, Nyborg became interested in establishing an annual series of medals that would be as commercially successful without the mass-market designs.

Nyborg’s aim was to produce medals that would emphasise the role of the artist and so raise awareness of the quality of Scandinavian art medal work as well as celebrate the individual character of the Nordic countries. The medals in the series are primarily visual with minimal inscription, which in most cases is pushed to the rim. They have a sensual texture to them rendered by their high relief modelling and selective polishing and burnishing, often giving the medals the appearance of having been handled frequently or carried in a pocket for years.

The Scandinavian country medals were all struck in bronze in annual editions of 5000 by Kultateollisuus Ky in Turku, Finland, which maintained a remarkably consistent excellence in quality given the complexity of medal design, and each medal is presented in an edition-specific presentation box. Each medal is individually numbered within their edition and that number is inscribed on the edge, along with the date, the name of the mint and the name of the series. The artist’s name, sometimes in the form of their actual signature, usually appears on a face of the medal. Although the medals are largely consistent in size (70mm diameter) and weight (approximately 275g although a few are much heavier), many of the artists concerned experimented freely within those limits with expectations as to medal design and form, thus creating in effect miniature sculptural works with themes that remain relevant today.

While Nyborg’s Nordic Art Medal Series speaks eloquently of its time, these medals also speak to Nyborg’s proud regionalism and to the ever-present spirit of Nordic self-determination. They highlight traditional characteristics, languages, and practises alongside modern technologies, and speak of regionalism as well as nationalism. They remind us of both the simplicities and complexities of the world in which we still live, that we inhabit space as well as place.

 

Contributed by Chrystopher J Spicer.