Famous Swedish designers – and the objects they made

Among the best-known Swedish designers are Carl and Karin Larsson, Alf Wallander, Simon Gate and Edward Hald, Wilhelm Kåge, Märta Måås-Fjetterström, Carl Malmsten, Bruno Mathsson, Josef Frank, Astrid Sampe, Greta Magnusson Grossman, Stig Lindberg and Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe. The list also includes engineers such as Gustaf Dalén and Gideon Sundbäck, whose inventions became everyday objects.

Facts

The turn of the century: the home and Art Nouveau

Carl Larsson and Karin Larsson made their home, Lilla Hyttnäs at Sundborn, into an ideal. Karin designed textiles and furniture with clear colours and simple forms, and Carl’s pictures in the book Ett hem in 1899 spread the image of the light Swedish home across the world. Her weavings in vernacular techniques were far ahead of their time.

At the same time Alf Wallander brought Art Nouveau to Swedish porcelain. He was employed at Rörstrand in 1895 and became artistic director there, and his vases with plants in relief made the factory known at the Paris World’s Fair of 1900. The period is described under the turn of the century in Swedish design history.

The artists in industry

Glassworks and porcelain factories began at this time to employ artists, an idea that Gregor Paulsson formulated in Vackrare vardagsvara in 1919. Simon Gate and Edward Hald came to Orrefors in 1916–1917 and made engraved glass and Graal glass, which helped Swedish design to gain the name Swedish Grace in Paris in 1925. Wilhelm Kåge came to Gustavsberg in 1917 and designed everything from the green Argenta with silver decoration to the stackable service Praktika of 1933.

Märta Måås-Fjetterström opened her weaving workshop at Båstad in 1919. Her rugs in rölakan and flossa were based on the vernacular tradition of Skåne but had modern, stylised patterns, and they are still woven in the workshop. They are recognised by the woven initials.

Furniture: Malmsten and Mathsson

Carl Malmsten won a competition in 1916 for furniture for Stockholm City Hall and became the foremost defender of the Swedish furniture tradition. He built on vernacular and Gustavian craftsmanship, was sceptical of the tubular steel of Functionalism and founded schools of craft, among them Capellagården on Öland.

Bruno Mathsson from Värnamo went in the opposite direction. He studied how people sit and in 1934 designed the lounge chair Eva in bent birch with a seat of woven webbing, which was shown at the Paris World’s Fair in 1937. His chairs follow the profile of the body and are still made.

Pattern and textiles

Josef Frank moved from Vienna to Stockholm in 1933 and began working with Estrid Ericson at Svenskt Tenn. He wanted the home to be personal and eclectic, and his fabrics with imaginary plants, such as Vegetable Tree of 1944, broke with the smooth surfaces of Functionalism. They are still printed.

Astrid Sampe headed NK’s Textile Chamber from 1937 and made Swedish textiles known internationally, with her own graphic patterns such as Linjespel and fabrics by artists and architects. She shows a different role from that of the solitary artist: the designer as leader and commissioner.

The post-war years: Lindberg, Grossman and Torun

Stig Lindberg succeeded Kåge as artistic director at Gustavsberg in 1949. He made playful faience, textiles and illustrations, but also everyday ware in large editions, such as the ribbed Spisa Ribb. His work shaped the Swedish home of the 1950s.

Greta Magnusson Grossman moved to Los Angeles in 1940 and became one of the few women among California’s modernists, with lamps and furniture such as the Grasshopper lamp. Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe made simple jewellery close to the body in silver and steel and designed the wristwatch Vivianna for Georg Jensen in 1962. The period is described under the folkhem.

The engineers

Swedish design is also engineering. Gustaf Dalén received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 and then designed the Aga cooker, a cast-iron stove that stores heat and is still made today. Gideon Sundbäck from Småland designed the modern zip fastener in the United States in 1913, and Tord Sundén designed the Nordic Folkboat in 1942.

More names can be found under all designers, and the whole of Swedish design history, from the age of Sweden as a great power to the present, under Swedish design. How Swedish form is connected with that of its neighbours is shown in the guide to Scandinavian design and in the guide to famous Danish designers.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Which designer designed the lounge chair Eva in bent birch in 1934?