Pierre Forssell was an acclaimed industrial designer who designed cutlery and cookware, for among others Gense, before joining the distinguished brass foundry of Skultuna as creative director in the early 1950s. Forssell was commissioned to renew Skultuna’s product range and created several successful series of modernist interior decorating objects. He was also granted substantial artistic freedom and in this context he created limited editions of innovative objects, such as table lamps made entirely of brass.
The Finnish sculptor Björn Weckström is one of Scandinavia’s best known jewelry designers. In 1956 he graduated as a trained goldsmith, and soon after he opened his own studio in Helsinki. Combining his yearning to be a sculptor with his trade, he immediately started making modernist jewelry with characteristic angular shapes and matte surfaces. In 1961 he participated in a large exhibition of modern jewelry design at Goldsmith’s Hall in London, which catapulted him into both domestic and international fame.
In 1963 he joined Pekka Antilla to start Lapponia Jewelry, expanding the production and reach of his designs. This became clear as he won the Scandinavian design award the Lunning Prize in New York City in 1968. Drawing inspiration from his trip to the United States, Weckström designed a series called “Space Silver”. The series includes some 50 designs with themes as diverse as space, nature, and Greek mythology. Often incorporating people in silver in his pieces, the Space-series express an unprecedented sculptural and alluring quality in jewelry. Continuing this successful merging of beauty and intrigue, Weckström went on to create a series of jewelry serving as a commentary to the weapons manufacturing industry at the time. Made in color-patinated bronze with names such as “Daytona”, “Bethlehem Steel” and “General Motors”, the series reflects the inherent qualities of Weckström’s designs: thought-provoking, yet art in its own right.
In the early 1970s, Weckström started incorporating acrylic resin into his silver jewelry. Despite the outrage from conservative forces in jewelry making, these objects are some of his most beautiful and expressive to date. The mixing of materials in Weckström’s jewelry serves as an extension of the contradictions in life and art: a rough finish meets soft angles and plastic meets silver.
At this point, Lapponia had become so successful that in 1976, Björn Weckström was contacted by George Lucas to provide “statement jewelry” for his new, unnamed, film. Even though Weckström had no idea who George Lucas was, he accepted the work. However, due to time constrictions it was impossible to finish any new designs, and Lucas decided to have Carrie Fisher wear two existing designs, “Planetoid Valleys” and “Darina’s Bracelet” for the final scene of the movie. The use of Weckström’s designs in Star Wars further spread the word about his jewelry, and Weckstöm was pleased to see the result on the screen in 1977.
Today Björn Weckström lives in Italy, where he works mostly with sculpture. Still, the Finnish nature serves as a constant inspiration with ice, snow, and glaciers serving as themes today as well as in the 1960s.
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Furniture-making and silverware were the greatest assets when Danish design was launched on the international scene after World War II. Danish jewelry became world-leading in the 1950s thanks to well-known architects and designers like Nanna Ditzel and George Jensen. During the 1960s, the international revitalization of artistic jewelry was particularly felt in Denmark. One of the best expressions of this movement is seen in the jewelry made by firm Hans Hansen.
Hans Hansen founded his studio in silversmith-town Kolding in 1906. Initially they made only flatware, but in the 1930s the firm begun to make sleek, modernist silver jewelry under the direction of Hans Hansen’s son, Karl Gustav Hansen. Karl Gustav was a true talent in the trade, and by 20 he had already gained national recognition by receiving a silver medal, a Danish distinction of excellence, for his work in silver. Karl Gustav Hansen went on to sculpture studies and travels through Europe during a time of much political turbulence between the wars. Both influences can be seen in his jewelry, with its sculptural and daring qualities.
After his father died in 1940, Karl Gustav, at the time only 25, took over the firm. He started by creating a collection of jewelry called “Future”, setting the tome for Hansen modernism during the decades to follow. Hansen employed several up-and-coming silversmiths, among others Bent Gabrielsen and Bent Knudsen, who both went on to become highly successful modernists in their own right in the 1960s.
After the war in 1945, Karl Gustav went traveling again, but this time to the United States. Hansen reconnected with his father’s old contacts, and after a successful business trip, he flew home in the first trans-Atlantic passenger flight. During the 1960s, Hans Hansen expanded its business, and by the 1970s, Karl Gustav Hansen collaborated with sculptors such as Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick. In the 1980s the times caught up with Hansen, and the type of labor-intensive quality art-jewelry produced by the firm was deemed un-economic. In 1992, Hans Hansen reluctantly merged with the larger consortium Georg Jensen.
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Vicke Lindstrand was one of Sweden’s most influential glass artists, with a long, fruitful career where he set the tone of the style and quality of Swedish glass production over many decades. He was originally trained as an illustrator and was very accomplished as such, which is evident for example in his glass engravings. Lindstrand was employed as an artist by Orrefors glassworks from 1928 to 1940 where he worked alongside Simon Gate and Nils Landberg, among others.
Vicke Lindstrand turned to ceramics and worked as creative leader at Uppsala-Ekeby between 1942 and 1950. He brought with him his high sense of quality which elevated Uppsala-Ekeby’s overall production and was very important for the company’s development.
From Uppsala-Ekeby Lindstrand returned to glass as creative leader at Kosta glassworks, where he worked from 1950 to 1973, breaking new ground with new shapes, strong colors and a ceaseless richness of ideas. He made many important contributions with public artworks, among the the “Prisma” glass sculpture which was uncovered in Norrköping in 1967. At the time it was the largest glass sculpture in the world with its imposing height of 11.5 meters. Towards the end of his career Lindstrand worked in a small scale with smaller glass studios.
Claës Giertta was among the foremost Swedish silversmiths of the 1950s and onwards, breaking new ground in fine jewelry making and producing high quality jewelry. He got his education at Konstfack University College of Art, Crafts and Design and worked with many prestigious projects during his career, among them designing the cross for the first female ordination and the Grammis prize (1969-2007).
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Jorma Laine was one of the most unique voices in the history of Scandinavian jewelry, and is considered one of the most interesting Nordic silversmiths of the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a very characteristic abstract, modernistic style of working with silver and bronze, and is best known his work for the firm Turun Hopea, but he also worked for the firm Kultateollisuus Ky and his own firm Silver-Laine. He lived large parts of his life as a recluse in a cabin deep in the Finnish woods. There he lived close to the wildlife and got his inspiration from nature itself but also the from local myths of spirits and gnomes. His pieces range from beautiful geometrical pieces inspired by snowflakes to whimsical but oddly beautifull small sourly portraits of spirits.
Find jewelry by Jorma Laine on nordlingsjewelry.com.
Wiwen Nilsson was one of the most celebrated and influential silversmiths of his time. He was the son of silversmith Anders Nilsson and started his career working for his father. He debuted at the Gothenburg Exhibition of 1923 with a very strict, graphic coffee set which was met with very bad reviews. However later, in 1930, his designs became a huge success as it seems general taste was then finally ready for them. Typical of Wiwen Nilssons designs are the clean, geometric lines that express the beauty of the material.
Hans Bergström was the owner and creative director of the lighting firm Ateljé Lyktan, which he founded in Åhus in the early 1930s. He ran Ateljé Lyktan for three decades while simultaneously freelancing as a designer for among others ASEA. Bergström created amazing lighting in various models, many of which were serially produced. With his artistic ambition to innovate and evolve, he cultivated his designs over time and slight variations (experiments, improvements) can be seen in models which are basically the same but produced during different periods. His small firm was renowned for the poetic beauty and high quality of its products and he was the favorite lighting designer of fellow architects, among them Bruno Mathsson. Throughout his career Bergström accomplished many important interior design projects and gained several prestigious awards for his work, such as the Gold Medal at the Milano Biennale in 1950.
Alf Svensson was creative director at Bergboms, which was a successful Swedish lighting firm which manufactured both own designs and – thanks to Svensson’s international connections – those of international designers such as Greta Grossman and Edward Wormley. He was also creative director at the furniture company Ljungs industrier which Bergboms was tied to. Alf Svensson was an architect with sure instinct for new trends which can be seen in his own designs as well as in those of the designers Bergboms collaborated with.
Elias Svedberg was an architect and designer with a long career at NK, starting in the mid-1940s when he and Lena Larsson started developing the very successful “Triva” concept. The idea suggested that quality furniture were to be sold in flat packages and assembled by the customer – a concept that spanned decades and was a forerunner to other successful businesses picking up on the idea. Svedberg was the head of NK’s interior design department from 1952 to 1961 and together with Lena Larsson he wrote the classic book “Heminredning” (“Home interior design”). The book is pervaded by a strong incentive to educate and cultivate the reader in creating a pleasant and practical home.
