Hjo celebrates 600 years with Estrid Ericson exhibition
This exhibition is displayed in Hjo.
The small Swedish town of Hjo celebrates its 600th anniversary in 2013. Estrid Ericson, founder of Swedish Tenn, grew up in Hjo. Her work is now presented in an exhibition called, Svenskt Tenn – Design classics since 1924, at the school she attended as a child and where she later worked as an art teacher.
The exhibition includes both Estrid Ericson’s own designs and objects designed by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn. The interior design philosophy developed by Estrid Ericson and Josef Frank was innovative and rather radical in its day, and it remains just as relevant today. Svenskt Tenn’s interior design architects make use of it when they perform their duties in private homes as well as in the corporate world. It is about creating comfortable and personal rooms by mixing colors and shapes as well as old and new objects that you enjoy, instead of following some strict rules about how it should be.
Estrid Ericson successfully ran Svenskt Tenn until she was 85 years old, when the company was acquired by the Kjell and Märta Beijer Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to maintaining the Svenskt Tenn legacy and uses the annual surplus generated by the business to provide funding for scientific research and the preservation of Swedish craftsmanship.
http://www.hjo.se/Startsida/Uppleva-och-gora/Kulturkvaretert/
Sommar-Summer April 19 to May 26
When Svenskt Tenn’s interior architects do public offices and private homes today, their work build on ideas developed by Estrid Ericson and Josef Frank back in the 1930’s. These ideas are now visualized in an exhibition in the store at Strandvägen 5 in Stockholm.
Svenskt Tenn’s interior architects take on both small and large scale projects, which can include everything from a living room to an entire home, both in Sweden and internationally. It does not mean using products from Svenskt Tenn only.
‘’We mix furniture, lamps and textiles from many suppliers with selected Svenskt Tenn objects. All interiors that we do are unique, just like the people they are tailored for,’’ said Katarina Abrahamsson, interior architect at Svenskt Tenn.
The exhibition is displayed in the store between April 19 and May 26. Svenskt Tenn’s interior architects will be available during parts of the period for advice and dialogue.
Today Svenskt Tenn´s inspiring exhibition Primavera- Textile inspiration-Inspiring textile opens at Strandvägen 5 and runs thru May 19.
In the exhibition a multitude of textiles and variations of textile needlework is shown such as hanging of curtains, the usage of textiles as wallpaper, pillowcases, quilts, flounce etc.
Svenskt Tenn´s textile decorators are happy to help with both small and large projects. The decorators are there to help you with all from inspiration and choice of textile to curtains, textiles on furniture, pillowcases, drapery, curtain etc. The decorators will also help you with measurements of curtain hanging and complete solutions of textiles to your house. Svenskt Tenn´s textile decorators will be at the exhibition during large parts of the exhibition and during the weekends a sewer will work in the exhibition. Please stop by for inspiration or a talk.
One of the most beloved Svenskt Tenn textile prints – ‘’Elefant’’ by Estrid Ericson – is now also available as wallpaper in three different colour combinations with white elephants on a base of midnight blue, elephant grey or raspberry.
Estrid Ericson, founder of Svenskt Tenn, often found her ideas while travelling around the world. It was in a market in the south of France that she found a piece of batik fabric from the Belgian Congo, and was inspired to create the now well-known elephant print. It was printed on textile in the late 1930s and from today also available on wallpaper.
Earlier exhibitions
To Be Perfectly Frank
2013.02.05-2013.03.31
Positioned between fine art and design, the work of Michael Anastassiades aims to provoke dialogue, participation and interaction. As a homage to Josef Frank, Michael Anastassiades, has created a series of products exclusively for Svenskt Tenn in which he plays with the concept of sincerity, through a reinterpretation of selected objects designed by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn. Through changes in material, form and functionality, the pieces acquire a new identity, suggesting alternative stories alongside Josef Frank´s original vision.
‘’To Be Perfectly Frank,’’ invites the viewers on a journey where they are presented with reinterpretations of famous Josef Frank pieces.
Michael Anastassiades has rapidly become a major figure on the international design scene. His pieces feature prominently in landmark interiors around the world and his works are featured in permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London as well at the MAK in Vienna.
Michael Anastassiades launched his studio in 1994. Ten years later he established his company, introducing his signature collection of lighting, furniture, jewellery and tabletop objects. His philosophy is to produce exceptionally designed objects of permanent value. He is a graduate of both Imperial College and the Royal College of Art. He lives and works in London.
Selected products will be produced as limited editions and others are to be included in Svenskt Tenns´s permanent assortment.
GP & J Baker for Svenskt Tenn 23 of October-31 of December
Swedish interior design firm Svenskt Tenn and British textile company GP & J Baker have worked together since the 1930s. Now they launch three new prints sourced from GP & J Baker’s archive with colours selected to fit the Svenskt Tenn range.
The brothers George Percival and James Baker were pioneers in textile design, their corporate history stretching back to 1884. Some 40 years later the drawing teacher Estrid Ericson founded Svenskt Tenn in Sweden. In 1934 she began her lifelong collaboration with the architect and designer Josef Frank, and it was through him she was introduced to GP & J Baker’s classic prints on textile and wallpaper.
In the late 1930s, Estrid Ericson got the exclusive right to sell four GP & J Baker prints and they have remained in Svenskt Tenn’s range ever since. No formal contract was signed, but the agreement has survived, and today three more prints are presented in colour options made exclusively for Svenskt Tenn.
To celebrate this collaboration between Estrid Ericson and GP & J Baker an exhibition is to be seen at Strandvägen 5 in Stockholm.
Anniversary exhibition 28 of September until 14 of October, 2012.
Ann Wall's Design Scholarship awards young designers. The award is a part of the foundation’s efforts to, among other things, support the preservation of the cultural and artistic values of the Swedish design and décor tradition. This we celebrated in a anniversary exhibition at Svenskt Tenn where this year's as well as previous year's recipients exhibit their work.
Textile art, Cora Hamilton
The Ann Wall design prize awards young, talented designers and supports educational institutions that foster the role of design in society. The goal is to highlight the importance of design, both in public and private environments, and show how form and design can contribute to a better everyday life. It also enables Estrid Ericson and Josef Frank’s visions to live on and fulfill new, contemporary needs.
As of 2012 one million SEK in total have been awarded to thirty scholarship recipients so far.
Ann Wall was Svenskt Tenn’s managing director from 1979-1999. In honour of her long and successful term as the head of the company, Svenskt Tenn’s owner, the Kjell and Märta Beijer Foundation, started a design award in her name.
Josef Frank’s wallpaper 23 August-14 October 2012
“Strong colours and powerful patterns can remove the feeling of enclosure. Even a pokey cubbyhole can be exciting with spectacular wallpaper,” said Josef Frank when he began creating his patterns for Norrköping’s wallpaper factory.
Frank had a philosophy regarding how to use patterns in a room. Patterns should be different depending on whether they were going to be used for textiles, carpets or wallpaper. Frank believed that patterns should be made to suit these purposes. The patterns created for Norrköping’s wallpaper factory were the only wallpapers Frank made in his lifetime. Today, Svenskt Tenn produces these wallpaper patterns from Frank’s original sketches.
An individual expression and sense of freedom and happiness pervade Frank’s patterns. Frank created wallpaper patterns in compositions of strong, colourful, organic shapes, with an artistic flare. He wanted nature’s colours and forms, in a nearly invisible repetition, to evoke freedom and variety. The home should serve as a refuge from hectic daily life.
Frank often used stylized forms in his patterns and increased the intensity of the colours to achieve a maximum effect and he mixed the natural with the imaginative to spark a sense of wonder. He felt that the danger with a naturalistic picture, no matter how pleasing at first glance, is that the magic is missing. Frank wanted to capture the finely tuned reflection between dream and reality in his patterns.
The wallpaper is printed in Sweden according to the old tradition of distemper printing. Printing in distemper brings the wallpaper patterns to life in a technique that comes as close to Frank’s original patterns as possible.
There are six different patterns in Svenskt Tenn’s wallpaper collection. These patterns come in different colour combinations for a total of eleven wallpaper variations.
Masonite: Memoriam
Swedish design duo Folkform celebrate Masonite in a new exhibition at Svenskt Tenn.
The exhibition displays a series of cabinets exclusively designed for Svenskt Tenn by Anna Holmquist and Chandra Ahlsell of the design duo Folkform. In the cabinets, original Masonite hardboard from 1929 are combined with the last few sheets that was made before Sweden’s last Masonite manufacturer shut down in April 2011.
The exhibition features a gathering between the past and the present. Folkform’s four different models of cabinets are displayed along with a number of Svenskt Tenn objects from the same period, including the “Nationalmuseum” cabinet and textile print Terrazzo, both by Josef Frank.
The Masonite sheets that the cabinets were built from were recently discovered in an old warehouse. These were the very first product samples from 1929, with different colors and textures. In the cabinets, they are combined with new pieces of board manufactured just before the factory was closed down.
Folkform, who have been experimenting with Masonite for about ten years, have had a close collaboration with the Rundvik manufacturer in northern Sweden for a long time. The Folkform duo got to know each other at the Stockholm University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, where they created their renowned furniture with flowers pressed into Masonite.
Each cabinet is unique and will be sold after the exhibition, prices between SEK 16 000-75 000. Each model comes in a limited edition of four.
Masonite:Memoriam can be seen in the store at Strandvägen 5 in Stockholm until June 10.
Marble 4420
For the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2011, Monica Förster and Björn Kusoffsky have been invited to make their personal interpretation of Svenskt Tenn. Using the pattern Marble 4420 by Josef Frank as a starting point.
The Marble 4420 pattern, which is radically different from the typical Frank flowery patterns, is said to have been sketched when Josef Frank had encountered the art of Jackson Pollock, during this stay in New York in the 1940s. Designer Monica Förster and creative director Björn Kusoffsky have been inspired by the pattern to create a 3D installation with handmade artifacts and a film which explores the depths of Josef Frank’s world of patterns.
”This collaboration lets us experience how two of the most fascinating designers of our time combines today’s technology and creativity, making Josef Frank’s patterns come to life,” says Thommy Bindefeld, Marketing Manager at Svenskt Tenn. ”The choice of film as a medium followed quite naturally from the fact that Svenskt Tenn now has a temporary location in a former cinema house.”
Film:
Motion graphic designer Mika Pollack
Music by Nina Kinnert
Remix by Mika Pollack