This article forms part of the Decorative and Applied Arts Encyclopedia, a master reference hub providing a structured overview of design history, materials, movements, and practitioners.
Julius Olaf Randahl (1880–1972) was a Swedish-born American silversmith who worked at Chicago’s Kalo Shop before founding the Randahl Shop around 1911. His workshop produced hand-finished hollowware, tableware, serving pieces and other metalwork for department stores and jewellery firms across the United States.
After closing during the First World War, the Randahl Shop combined machinery with skilled hand-finishing and employed approximately fifteen to twenty workers. Museum collections document its evolving Arts and Crafts designs, national distribution, 1937 recognition and later connections with Cellini Craft and Reed & Barton.
Julius Olaf Randahl (1880–1972) was a Swedish-born American silversmith and the founder of the Randahl Shop. Working principally in Illinois, he helped extend the hand-wrought silver tradition associated with Chicago’s Arts and Crafts movement. His workshop produced hollowware, tableware, serving utensils, candlesticks and other art-metal objects for a national market.
Museum records distinguish between Julius Olaf Randahl, the individual silversmith, and the Randahl Shop, the workshop and commercial enterprise that bore his name. Therefore, this distinction matters because the business eventually employed numerous workers and combined mechanical production with skilled hand-finishing.
Julius Olaf Randahl and the Kalo Shop
In 1907, Clara Barck Welles recruited Julius Olaf Randahl to work at the Kalo Shop. He remained there until 1910. The Kalo Shop was one of the most influential centres of American Arts and Crafts metalwork, operating in Chicago and nearby Park Ridge, Illinois.
Kalo silver was known for functional forms, visible hammering and restrained ornament. According to the SFO Museum, early Randahl Shop trays, bowls and pitchers resembled objects produced by Kalo. Consequently, Randahl’s time at the workshop provides the clearest documented foundation for his later work.
The available museum records identify Randahl as Swedish. However, they do not establish where he received his original training in Sweden. Claims concerning a particular Swedish apprenticeship or school should therefore be treated cautiously unless further archival evidence becomes available.
Julmat and the Randahl Shop
After leaving the Kalo Shop, Julius Olaf Randahl and fellow silversmith Mattias Hanck established a workshop called Julmat. Its name combined the opening syllables of Julius and Mattias. The partnership operated for approximately one year.
Soon afterwards, Randahl founded the Randahl Shop. Museum catalogues generally date the workshop from 1911 and identify it as an American enterprise active in the Chicago area.
The Randahl Shop differed from Kalo in its approach to distribution. Rather than relying exclusively on its own retail identity, the business supplied hand-wrought hollowware to department stores and jewellery firms. This arrangement enabled Randahl silver to reach customers beyond Illinois.
For example, a tray in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston provides direct evidence of this distribution system. Made by the Randahl Shop between 1911 and 1930, it was retailed by Shreve, Crump & Low Co. The underside bears the workshop’s JOR device, the words “HAND WROUGHT” and “STERLING,” a model number and the retailer’s name.
Handwork and Mechanised Production
The Randahl Shop closed during the First World War. When it reopened, Randahl introduced machinery into its production process. Nevertheless, museum accounts state that objects continued to be partially completed by hand.
Therefore, the Randahl Shop should not be characterised as either a completely manual studio or a conventional mass-production factory. Its importance lies partly in the way it adapted the appearance and values of hand-wrought Arts and Crafts silver to a larger commercial operation.
During the 1920s, Randahl developed a national distribution network. The SFO Museum records that the workshop employed approximately fifteen to twenty workers. As a result, an object bearing a Randahl mark should generally be attributed to the workshop unless a museum record specifically identifies Julius Olaf Randahl as its individual designer or maker.
Randahl Shop Silver in Museum Collections
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art holds an important silver bowl attributed to both Julius O. Randahl and the Randahl Shop. Made in the United States between 1911 and approximately 1920, the bowl has a scalloped rim, engraved floral decoration and a stepped circular base. Its accession number is M.84.99.
In addition, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston holds a sterling-silver tray and two serving spoons made by the Randahl Shop between 1911 and 1930. Their inscriptions preserve valuable evidence about the workshop’s marks, model numbers and use of the description “Handwrought.”
Meanwhile, the RISD Museum holds a silver water pitcher dated to approximately 1912. It also holds a three-piece coffee service designed by the Randahl Shop around 1935. The service, comprising a coffeepot, sugar bowl and creamer, was manufactured by Reed & Barton around 1965. Its silver vessels and ebony handle demonstrate a more streamlined approach than that found in many early Arts and Crafts objects.
Additional Randahl Shop Museum Holdings
Furthermore, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art has documented a substantial group of Randahl Shop silver. Its published holdings include a footed bowl, two pitchers, a serving set, a round tray and a candle snuffer. These objects demonstrate the breadth of the workshop’s domestic silver production.
The Brooklyn Museum’s visible-storage catalogue includes a pair of double candlesticks made by the Randahl Shops around 1930. Their accession numbers are 1991.34.21 and 1991.34.22.
Museum Archive and Workshop Records
The Chicago History Museum holds the Julius O. Randahl Collection of Visual Materials. Dating from approximately 1925 to 1969, it contains three photographic prints, two drawings and a pattern book.
The collection is particularly important because it documents aspects of Randahl’s design and production process. In turn, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art identifies the material through its survey of Chicago archival collections, although the physical records remain at the Chicago History Museum.
Recognition in 1937
Randahl received notable recognition in 1937. His work appeared in the Exhibition of Contemporary and Handwrought Silver at the Brooklyn Museum. Moreover, in the same year, he received a silver medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et des Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris.
The available museum account does not identify the object that received the Paris medal. Consequently, it is safer to record the award without attributing it to a particular candlestick, bowl or serving piece.
Cellini Craft and Reed & Barton
By the 1950s, the Randahl enterprise had become a family business. A State of Illinois exhibition publication records that the Cellini Craft patterns were sold in 1957 to Scott and Julius Randahl, who operated a metalworking shop and retail business in Skokie.
The Randahl business was sold to Reed & Barton in 1965. The coffee service in the RISD Museum, designed by the Randahl Shop and manufactured by Reed & Barton, provides material evidence that at least one Randahl design continued in production following the sale.
Julius Olaf Randahl’s Design Legacy
Julius Olaf Randahl occupies an important position in the history of American silver. His career connects Swedish craft migration with the Chicago Arts and Crafts movement and the growth of nationally distributed decorative metalwork.
At the Kalo Shop, his early work developed within an Arts and Crafts environment. Later, his independent workshop adapted this tradition to a larger business using both mechanical processes and hand-finishing. Consequently, museum collections preserve examples ranging from hammered bowls and pitchers to serving utensils, candlesticks and a streamlined coffee service.
For this reason, Julius Olaf Randahl is best understood as a Swedish-born American silversmith whose workshop carried Chicago’s Arts and Crafts silver tradition into broader commercial production.
Sources
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “Randahl Shop, Bowl, 1911–circa 1920.”
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “The Randahl Shop.”
RISD Museum. A Changing Reflection: Silver, Metalwork, and Jewellery in the RISD Museum Collection.
San Francisco International Airport Museum. “A New Woman: Clara Barck Welles, Inspiration & Influence in Arts & Crafts Silver.”
Smithsonian Archives of American Art. “Julius O. Randahl Collection of Visual Materials.”
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Annual Report 2014–15.
Illinois Governor’s Mansion. Art of Illinois.
Dolan, M. (1993). 1830s-1990’s American Sterling Silver Flatware: A Collector’s Identification & Value Guide. United States: Books Americana. https://amzn.to/3mYhbWW
Haslam, M., & Haslam, M. (1995). Marks & Monograms: The Decorative Arts, 1880-1960. Collins & Brown.
Helliwell, S. (1988). Collecting Small Silverware. United Kingdom: Phaidon-Christie’s. https://amzn.to/3TnVSdA
Krekel-Aalberse, A. (1989). Art Nouveau and Art Deco silver. Abrams.
Langford, J. (1998). Silver: A Practical Guide to Collecting Silverware and Identifying Hallmarks. Australia: Sandstone Books. https://amzn.to/3LytDqD
Newman, H. (1987). An illustrated dictionary of silverware: 2,373 entries relating to British and North American wares, decorative techniques and styles, and leading designers and makers, principally from c.1500 to the present. United Kingdom: Thames and Hudson. https://amzn.to/40jlY3p
Rainwater, D. T., Fuller, M., & Fuller, C. (2004). Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufacturers. Schiffer Pub.
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