In February 2021, Egeværk received a honorary grant from the Peter, Ingrid and Ralph Hernøe non-profit foundation. The accompanying text emphasizes one of Egeværk’s firm and central beliefs – namely that ”without craftsmanship, there is no renewal”. Read the grounds of the foundation below.
In connection with the termination of the Foundation, the Board has decided to award grants for a number of non-profit purposes, and has also decided to award honorary grants to a number of artists for their efforts in their respective fields without prior application.
The honorary grant has been awarded to you on the following grounds:
“Through their work, Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen have demonstrated that ‘without craftsmanship, there is no renewal’. Through their particularly skilled craftsmanship, they have been responsible for the design of a number of new forms expressed in wood under the name Egeværk. Egeværk was established in Hundested in 2011, but is run today from a studio in an old industrial hall in Helsingør. Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen trained as cabinetmakers in the classic Danish furniture company PP Møbler, which has created and produced famous Danish furniture design. Both Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen were awarded silver medals when they completed their training. Lasse Kristensen has won both the Danish and the Nordic trade skills championships as a cabinetmaker, and he has also participated in the world cabinetmaking championships in Japan.
Despite their professional qualifications and their unique production in technically challenging forms, Egeværk were hard hit due to cancelled exhibitions as a result of Covid-19.
Through the award of a grant to Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen, the Board wishes to acknowledge the couple’s artistic efforts in a challenging technical and artistic niche, and the Board hopes that Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen will carry on the Danish tradition of fine wood work.”