A graduate at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts as well as a skilled silversmith, Jo Hammerborg was passionate about flying, parachuting, art and design.
He took part to Denmark’s resistance between 1940 and 1945 as a saboteur, and was appointed as chief designer at Fog & Mørup in 1957, where he stayed till 1980.
Fog & Mørup was founded by Ansgar Fog and E. Mørup in Aarhus in 1904, and was one of the leading Danish design lighting manufacturers throughout the 20th C.
The 1970s was the company most successful decade with a team of talented designers including Sophus Frandsen, Claus Bonderup and Torsten Thorup, Jørgen Bo, E Balslev, Karen and Ebbe Clemmensen, Sidse Werner, Hans Due and Peter Avondoglio, working under the supervision of Jo Hammermorg.
The designs produced under Hammerborg’s direction are recognizable for their uncompromised minimal aesthetics with restrained or absent decoration, attention to proportions and subtle colour and material choice.
In the late 1970s Fog & Mørup merged with Lyfa; in 1980 Lyfa-Fog & Mørup was taken over by Lyskaer, a mass-market lighting producer, and the Fog & Mørup brand with which Hammerborg was so closely associated with, was abandoned.
Jo Hammerborg died in 1982 in a skydiving accident.
Throughout his career, he supervised the creation of more than 180 designs produced by Fog & Mørup.
