Gudmund Elvestad

Gudmund Elvestad (1932-2006)

Of the designers working with the Tostrup company, Gudmund Elvestad is amongst thoose with the highest Modernist quality. Designing for Tostrup from 1960, he made both corpus/hollow-ware and jewelry. His jewelry in a ‘raw’ almost brutal expression can be seen as related to some of Gine Sommerfeldt’s early work. His designs are found in several churches, having been commissioned to create altar silver.

After finishing studies for goldsmithry he got an apprenticeship at the David-Andersen company 1950-54. Studying at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) 1954-59. Amongst several scholarships that he got were the Fulbright Scholarship 1959-60, that took him to Cranbrooh Academy of Art, Michigan.

Back in Norway Gudmund Elvestad started working for Tostrup. He also worked on a free lance basis for the company Sønnica in Oslo. From 1964 he went into another field when he started designing glass for the small company ‘Randsfjorden Glassverk’, where famous female glass artist Benny Motzfeldt was artistic leader from 1967. In 1966 Elvestad took the position of leader of the goldsmith class at National College of Art and Design (NCAD), a position until then held by Oscar Sørensen, another prominent designer at Tostrup.