TONE VIGELAND (1938-2024)

Tone Vigeland, the daughter of the artist Per Vigeland, was born into one of Norway's illustrious artistic families in Oslo, Norway, in 1938. She was inspired by the organic forms in silver of Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe and jewelry from Indian and Egyptian cultures. Vigeland studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry.

Early in her career, she became involved with PLUS, a collective of Scandinavian craftspeople who produced models for production by small manufacturers. Their goal was to make good design available to all. Vigeland continued working with them after opening her own shop in 1961.

In the 1970s, Vigeland produced more flexible and fluid jewelry that would move with the wearer. Although she has made jewelry that incorporates gold, stones, steel, and enamel, she prefers silver because it becomes more polished with wear. In 1980, she was given a gift of a hand-forged nail from a friend’s home, and it led her to gather nails and tacks, materials that started prominently to appear in her work. Her most famous necklace from this period is made from two sheets of silver mesh onto which she forged individual steel nails hammered so that they would lay against the body like feathers. She then added an old steel nail and soldered gold to it. She said that the hardest part of forging, soldering, fusing, and shaping metals is to give them artistry and sculptural form. While people associate her work with body armor from the Viking Age and chain mail—which pleases her, even if that is not what she set out to do—Vigeland says that she is inspired by the gray Norwegian landscape. 

In 1981, she had a solo show at Electrum Gallery, in London, a key hub for artist-jewelers opened by Barbara Cartlidge, which further propelled her career.   

Vigeland's work is held by museums worldwide including the Victoria and Albert Museum; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; and Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; along with the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal in 1988 and decorated with the Commander of the Order of St. Olav in 1996.

Visit our exhibition page for "MEDITATIONS ON MODERNISM: Thirty Years of Jewelry Design by Jacqueline Rabun, 1990–2022 and Selections from Notable Post-WWII Nordic Jewelry" to learn more about the innovative and exquisite Nordic jewelry in our collection.