In 1954, Theodore Nierenberg and his wife started Dansk in their garage in Great Neck, Long Island, after a trip to Europe.
(Associated Press)
Theodore Nierenberg, 86, founder of Dansk tableware
In 1954, Theodore Nierenberg and his wife started Dansk in their garage in Great Neck, Long Island, after a trip to Europe.
(Associated Press)
NEW YORK - Theodore D. Nierenberg, who started Dansk International Designs in his suburban New York garage and helped popularize Scandinavian-themed tableware and cookware in American kitchens and dining rooms, has died.
He was 86.
The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, his daughter Karin Weisburgh said yesterday. Mr. Nierenberg died Friday at his home in Armonk, N.Y.
The company’s motto was “From the kitchen to the dinning room table’’ because the sleek, clean lines of its pieces were both functional and beautiful, said Weisburgh.
The Dansk line included wooden salad bowls and trays, stainless steel flatware embellished with exotic woods such as teak, glassware, and porcelain-coated steel casserole dishes with lids, known as Kobenstyle, in an array of colors. For a time, the company also produced textiles that included placemats and tablecloths.
Mr. Nierenberg and his wife, Martha, started the company in their garage in Great Neck, Long Island, in 1954, after a trip to Europe in which they were taken with the work of industrial designers. They later moved their company to Mount Kisco, N.Y.
While in Copenhagen, the Nierenbergs met the Danish designer Jens Quistgaard after seeing a set of his teak-and-steel flatware at a museum there. Quistgaard became Dansk’s founding designer and, working from Europe, he stayed with the company until the 1980s.
Mr. Nierenberg commissioned Wusthof, a German company, to produce his flatware and dinnerware for about 20 years. But he also used plants in Poland, Japan, France, and Denmark to produce the company’s other product lines.
The company was sold in the 1980s, and is now owned by the Lenox tableware and giftware company.
Weisburgh said the family feasted only on Dansk at home. “It’s all I ever knew about,’’ she said.
Mr. Nierenberg retired in 1985 so he could concentrate on his many hobbies, which included gardening, cooking, traveling, and photography, she said.
In 1993, he had a book published, “The Beckoning Path: Lessons of a Lifelong Garden,’’ with photographs he took of his renowned Hudson Valley woodland garden featuring Japanese maples. The garden opens for tours twice a year.
Weisburgh said that her father did not want a funeral and that his body has been donated to science.
Besides his daughter, Mr. Nierenberg leaves his wife, two sons, and another daughter.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.