Between Tradition and Modernity

The Swedish applied arts industry gained international renown in the 1920s. The breakthrough, above all for Swedish glass, came at the 1925 World’s Fair in Paris. Better things for everyday life was the slogan under which artists were recruited by the industry to design useful, beautiful – but also simple and inexpensive – objects for the increased well-being of all.

The traditional art market of unique handmade objects for wealthy consumers thrived at the same time, and tended to dominate at international fairs – but was accompanied by the utopian urging beauty for all.

This celestial globe is engraved with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Glass engraving was an almost forgotten technique when Orrefors revived the method in the 1910s. Simon Gate and Edward Hald won great international acclaim, enabling the glassworks to start a school for engravers. At most, there were 36 engravers working at the factory at the same time. Hald’s globe was made for the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930. It is a magnificent finale to the heyday of engraved glass in the 1920s.

Portraiture

Sweden’s art scene grew somewhat isolated during the first world war. After the war, many Swedish artists again journeyed around Europe. They visited Paris and Berlin to see modern art, and Italy to study the mediaeval and renaissance heritage.

In France, they were inspired by Pierre Bonnard’s iridescent painting and André Lhote’s cautious cubism. The portraits of painters and designers on this wall give a sense of the varied expressions of Swedish portraiture during the 1920s and 1930s.

Arvid Fougstedt here portrays five artist friends – all elegantly dressed men belonging to the generation of Swedish artists that came to prominence in the 1910s. Inspired by cubism’s way of breaking up a subject, Fougstedt composed the painting as a collage in which each person has his own individual background. At the top centre, we glimpse two Stockholm churches – Riddarholmskyrkan and Storkyrkan.

The Lady’s Parlour

This section shows interior decoration for and by Swedish women. The ideal of equality between men and women was gaining ground, in the workplace and home alike. Sweden introduced universal suffrage in 1921.

But 19th-century values lingered. The ideal middleclass home was divided into a private and a public sphere, with drawing and dining rooms in the latter for receiving guests, as well as smoking rooms for men and parlours for ladies.

The Swedish actress Greta Garbo had an image of aloofness and mystique. She did not match the dulcet female ideal embodied by Hollywood stars such as Mary Pickford. Instead she was launched as an enigmatic and tragic femme fatale. Pictures of her face are today more well-known than her films. The Greta Garbo myth still lives, and is far bigger than the sum of Greta Gustafsson’s life and roles.

World Class Swedish Glass

The Orrefors glassworks, under new ownership from 1913 and with new designers and blowers, made its mark on the 1920s international design scene. Its graal technique was new. Table glassware, dubbed better things for everyday life, was launched at the Home Exhibition in 1917 and exported, with amber soda-lime glass, all over the world. Engraved glass from Orrefors was the height of modernity in 1920. Orrefors started a school of engraving in 1922.

Mass and Weight

As early as at the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, Swedish glassworks provided examples of art glass for a new era, with heavy, light-refracting mass and no engraved decorations the ideal. The models came from France. There were many glassworks, and most had designers on the payroll. Orrefors was the biggest, with the resources to develop new techniques and effects that were exhibited around the world.

The bird and face encased in the vase were made with the ariel technique developed by Orrefors in the 1930s, which used air bubbles as an element of decoration. This heavy, sculptural vase by Edvin Öhrström was shown at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Both art glass and utility glassware were prominent in the Swedish pavilion, whose motto was Swedish Modern: A Movement Towards Sanity in Design.

Scandinavian Design and a New Freedom

Swedish glass enjoyed international renown and was seen to represent modern life. High quality work of pure crystal and pleasing lines were the dominant features. Notions of good design and taste became more varied with new designers such as Erik Höglund and Bengt Edenfalk. They wanted more personal expression in the glass industry, and a freer approach to material. Some glassworks owners, including Erik Rosén at Boda, accepted the challenge.

Modern Cast Iron

The technique of casting iron in a mould has existed in Europe since the 16th century. Methods improved during industrialisation, and iron products such as tools, machines, rails, building components, stoves and household goods propelled the development of society.

But when steel began to replace cast iron, many foundries were forced to close. The Näveqvarn ironworks founded in 1623, instead began commissioning artists to develop new products. They designed sculptures as well as flower boxes, garden furniture, fences, radiator covers and balcony railings.

The Bergslagen urn is a showpiece of Näveqvarn’s technical and artistic skills. Around ten copies were made, and it was shown outside the Swedish pavilion at the 1925 World’s Fair in Paris. The urn’s shape and decoration exemplify the 1920s interest in classical as well as ancient Egyptian art and architecture. Reminiscent of Egyptian pictography, or of a stiffly drawn comic strip, the decoration tells the story of the metal industry.

Industrial Goods

When industries increased their production of everyday objects, these were initially designed by technicians or craftsmen. For the goods to attract greater interest, sell better and gain acceptance, artists were hired as designers. There are thus many similarities between the era’s industrial design and art handicrafts. Both emphasise the objects’ materials and function, and the technical possibilities of the new machine age.

The coffee pot resembles an oil can from a mechanical workshop, or a tool fashioned from standardised steel tubes. Functional and undecorated, it can be seen as a radical and optimistic vision of what machines could produce. But in fact, it was the result of painstaking and precise work done by hand. Slutzky had trained at the Wiener Werkstätte and taught at the Bauhaus school of design; he was also the son of a goldsmith in Carl Fabergé’s employ.

Luxury Goods

Luxury goods was a term used by department stores and shops for select decorative items. They can fulfil practical needs, but above all they are art objects arousing desire and admiration. Modern 1920s luxury goods are typically simple in design, with abstract patterns and perfect, smooth surfaces that show off the material. They might look machine-made, but were in fact made by skilled craftsmen whose precision exceeded that of machines.

Concrete Art

Otto G. Carlsund is Sweden’s foremost representative of cubism, purism and concrete art. His friend Ingegerd Torhamn designed and made rugs with concrete patterns. Both showed their work at the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, where modern art, architecture and design were presented to the wider Swedish public.

The persistent and skewed hierarchy that values painting more highly than applied art means that their works are rarely shown side by side. Here they have been brought together to demonstrate that ideas and artistic expression are not constrained by theoretical boundaries.

Ingegerd Torshamn’s rug is a kindred spirit to the pared-down modern architecture and design of the 1920s. She sympathised with innovative design ideas coming out of Paris and Berlin. A purchase of steel tube chairs from Bauhaus inspired her first rug. Torhamn made rugs by hand, in the traditional manner, but no Swedish textile artist had yet made rugs of such radical design. The rug is matter-of-factly signed with the artist’s initials.

Functionalism and Luxury Functionalism

A major issue in the 1920s and 1930s was how art, architecture and design could contribute to the development of a welfare state that attended to the wishes and needs of both the individual and the masses. Functionalism saw beauty and quality in simple designs and good function.

Simple designs were also easier to mass produce, which meant lower prices of homes and goods. Still, before this vision became a reality, many objects that looked machine-made were in fact made by hand. There was also a luxury functionalism in the modern style, for customers who were not concerned about price.

In the 1920s creative architects and designers began experimenting with a new industrial material: steel tubing. The tubes could be bent into attractive, strong, functional furniture that was economic on materials and did not accumulate dust. A design revolution was in the making. The vision was for industrial production of steel furniture, accessible to all. The German architect Mies van der Rohe’s 1926 chair is a visionary and elegant example.

Form Governed by Function

Wage increases in the 1950s led to changes in patterns of consumption. Products were mass produced, and design was important for production, logistics, function and marketing. The biggest design office in the Nordics was run by Sigvard Bernadotte and Acton Björn, who developed several design classics. Their office also served as school for a new generation of industrial designers, as there was no formal training for this new profession.

The snake-like shape of the Ericofon earned it the nickname Cobra. It was the world’s first mass-produced one-piece telephone. Developing it from idea product, took many years. Ralph Lysell made the first sketches in 1940–1941. The components had to be adapted to the design. It was intended to be easy to hold and, as the adverts promised, as light as a feather. The Cobra went into production in 1956, was available in six colours. It was manufactured until 1982.

The Drawing-room

In the 1930s and 1940s, rigid social conventions began to loosen in favour of a freer way of socialising in the home. Earlier, both wealthier and humbler homes would have a “formal parlour”, as a marker of status, used only for special occasions, with furniture suites, tables and a sideboard. The new ideal was to mix comfortable furniture for various needs and decorate with objects expressing the owner’s personality.

Ergonomics became an issue, and bentwood an alternative to steel tube design. Fabric printing developed, offering a relatively simple and inexpensive way of changing and embellishing a room with colours and patterns.

The interior designer Otto Schulz mixed traditional techniques with modern design. This cabinet’s leather covering is fastened with brass tacks, which have also been used to decorate it with circles and lines. In his shop Boet in Gothenburg he sold furniture and interiors to well-to-do homes in the region for 30 years from 1920. He also arranged study circles and published a magazine about interior design, crafts and applied arts.

Stoneware

Stoneware is a material and a technique in which the clay is fired once, at around 1 200–1 400°C. This makes it impermeable (vitreous), which distinguishes it from earthenware. It became very popular in European art ceramics during the early decades of the 20th century, referred to as ‘grande feu’. The glaze often has a deeper hue and the clay is well suited to larger, sculptural objects. Stoneware was developed thousands of years ago in China.

Is it a seed pod? Or a vase? Perhaps both. The shiny glaze oozes sensually down the surface and the earthen tones call nature to mind. ’The budding style l’ Salto called this technique in which buds and growths form soft undulating surfaces, spreading organically across the form, sometimes with protruding horns or distinct tips.

The People’s Home Living Room

In 1928 the leader of Social Democratic party, Per Albin Hansson, launched the idea of a Swedish people’s home (folkhem) – a society that would be a home for all Swedes, based on equality and accord.

His party won the 1932 election and began programmes of social reform and housing construction. Issues long on the design agenda gained a political dimension, and a global approach was applied to urban planning, architecture, interiors and design. As resources were scarce, research institutes and testing facilities developed solutions, including for the living room which was replacing the “formal parlour” in many homes.

Alva and Gunnar Myrdal were two of the most influential public figures in 20th-century Sweden. Their ideas on community planning, social justice and gender equality significantly contributed to Social Democratic policy from the 1930s onwards. We see them here in their shared office. The painting can be seen as a symbol of the modern Swedish welfare state, where women and men were expected to work on equal terms.

The All-purpose Room

The standard of living rose after the second world war, and people had more money to spend on homes. Designers and manufacturers competed for custom with colours and designs. The irresolute could get advice from interior designer Lena Larsson, who had unconventional ideas about family rooms for everyday use.

But teenagers were a new consumer category, and they tended to shun the family room, leading to designs for teenagers’ rooms. And many people still regarded ‘best rooms’ with period furniture as status markers. There was one object that overrode all differences in taste, however: the TV.

Designed back in 1938, the Butterfly chair became associated in Sweden (where it was called the Bat) with changing 1950s attitudes to young people. Its design allowed for greater freedom to explore new sitting postures, and it was one of the first items that clearly marked a new design age in Swedish homes. From 1950 it was made at NK’s Nyköping workshop under licence from Knoll in the US.

Scandinavian Design

In the 1950s Scandinavian Design became an international term. Design from the Nordic countries was marketed as a synthesis of beauty and function. Simple forms and light-coloured natural materials were held up as typical and somewhat exotic. Products that sold particularly well included wood furniture, glass and textiles.

The Nordic countries also represented democratic ideals and welfare policy, and these values were woven into the concept. Design in Scandinavia, a travelling exhibition that was seen by more than 600 000 Americans between 1954 and 1957, helped establish the term in the US.

The Housing Shop

As Sweden had not been involved in the second world war, Swedish industries were intact and ready for production and export when peace came. There were plenty of jobs, the living standard was rising and there was money to spend. Designers and manufacturers competed for consumers’ attention, launching technical innovations, new models, colours and patterns.

Young couples could get housing loans – provided they attended a course to learn how to make rational choices in the housing shop. Here are some examples of new products.

Food Storage

In the early 20th century most foods were sold by weight. Rational storage solutions for dry goods were marketed and could be fitted into the modern home’s pantry or hung on the kitchen wall.

Fresh food was harder to store, meaning housewives had to shop often. An alternative was to get an icebox cooled by blocks of ice brought in from frozen lakes in winter.

Refrigerators were expensive, and did not become common until the 1930s, when space-saving containers for fridges were also created. These heavy ceramic and glass vessels were eventually replaced by plastic ones.

Stainless

Well into the 1940s, stainless steel was regarded as an inferior and cheap material. It was mainly seen as an alternative for those who could not afford silver. The fact that stainless steel products imitated traditional, historical objects didn’t help.

Stainless steel only gained acceptance when designs were modernised and the material got a new and topical expression of its own. One sales argument that also won converts was that stainless steel, unlike silver, did not have to be polished.

The Set Table

Even if more people had the opportunity to consume, not everyone could or wanted to perpetuate the values of the past. It was no longer prestigious to own a dinner service for at least twelve guests. Entertaining became less formal.

Glass and china were sold by the piece instead of the dozen, which was appreciated by those with small homes as well as those who wanted to buy pieces as they needed them, or mix different ones for a personal touch.

Pots, pans and oven dishes were now designed to be placed directly on the table. Serving dishes and jugs were no longer needed.

Everyday Objects of Plastic

New types of plastic were developed after the war that allowed for the mass production of plastic items. This was considered advantageous in several ways. It was possible to make things that had new, exciting colours and shapes.

Plastic was durable in the sense that the objects were hard to break, cheap easy to clean. It was also suited to production of all kinds of items – from ordinary objects such as buckets, bottles, jars, bowls and kitchen utensils to more elegant things like services, dishes and utensils for serving.