Carl Mads Cohr

Danish silversmith, industrialist, and politician

25 April 1860 the young goldsmith Ditlev Madsen Cohr opened a workshop in the danish town Fredericia. He lived from producing and selling handmade flatware. He died in 1883 and his widow carried on, until the oldest son, 25 years old Carl Madsen Cohr, took over. He introduced mechanical working methods. In 1895 he started manufacturing hollowware.

In 1921 the production of silverplated goods was started and from the beginning Cohr used the trademark ATLA on silverplated flat- and hollowware. When Carl M. Cohr died in 1925 his son-in-law Harald Lützen became managing director and his son Einar Cohr confidential clerk. At this time Cohr was the largest silverware factory in Denmark and used several wellknown artists: Eduart Eggeling, Knud V. Engelhardt, Sigfred Wagner, Mogens Koch and H.F. Gross.

The Carl M. Cohr Silver company was founded by Ditlev Cohr in 1860 and continued to make silver products up until it closed in 1987. It was Ditlev's son, Carl, that made his mark upon the company. Despite traditional designs selling better, Cohr kept with a more updated look, hiring designers Knud V. Engelbert, Siegfried Wagner, and Kastor Hansen for the 1909 national exhibition in Aarhus, and later on creating pieces designed by Hans Peter Jacobsen and Hans Bunde. Jacobsen designed many pieces for Cohr during his 40+ years with the company, and added much to its functionalist look with simple designs and devoid of decoration. He also did much silver plate for Cohr, and made it into something truly competitive. Hans Bunde designed for Cohr after World War II and after his training at Cohr, continued on to learn under Wiwen Nilsson, the leading Swedish silversmith. Afterward he went back to Cohr from 1951 to 1976 and became head of the one-off products. His designs were elegant and representative of Danish functionalism, unlike any other silver factory could produce.