Posted 12 years ago
rebessin
(116 items)
These two vases by Gunnar Nylund, is probably quite rare. I have anyway never seen the models until I came across them recently. They are marked with model numbers and color code. The light blue color is in an underlay. The vases are hand blown and then finally got their mouths cutted and manually "droven" out with multiple inwarmings. So they are completely finished by the masterblower (only the pontil marks cut away as after work).
Model numbers: B 783 and B 785
Color code: X 65 (probably not so common)
Heights: 175 mm and 160 mm
Another vase in the same series here:
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/91720-rare-light-blue-gunnar-nylund-vase--str?in=441
I want to date the models to about 1956-57. The reason is that the catalog of 1954 stops at B 620 and model numbers B 800-900 probably are around 1958-59. Unfortunately I have no catalog from the late 1950s, it would have been easier to date more precisely then.
The shape and color I think is very clean and stylish in these three vases. Gunnar Nylund is best known as designer of ceramics, among others for Rorstrand. But I think his glass holds at least the same artistic quality. Many of his models for Strombergshyttan is quite unknown to most people (even myself), and many of them are probably produced in very small series (perhaps only for a short period). The more one researches Nylunds time at Strombergshyttan, and the more models you explore , the more amazed you become over his varied production. I think Gunnar Nylund deserves greater recognition as a glass designer than he has so far received.
Sweet vases and outstanding information as always! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks bellin and charcoal! Hope to show some more pieces of Nylunds quite unknown and not so common glass from 1950s forwards. My feelings goes to Orup and Tona/Tonerre, when I see these Nylund-glasses. But different in shape and colors.
Hi rebessin! Thanks for sharing these lovely vases. Can I ask about "Orup and Tona/Tonerre"?
You find them here vetraio:
http://bengtorup.se/glas/
Tona is the fading series. Tonerre and Krokard I am not familiar with.
Many thanks rebessin!
Yes!! Stunning is right for these beautiful vases!!!
Thanks to Misglass, and lovers!
Again very beautiful items by Nylund that you are sharing here with us, rebessin! There is something ethereal about this series, really very beautiful!
By the way: your pictures are fantastic, too. It's incredible how creative these times were for designers in Sweden. There were so much factories, so much designers. But who bought all this? Was it really so popular? And the series must have been rather small in general.
Thanks designqvist and cobaltobold! Much of the glass production was sold to other contries. In any case I think many models were produced in very small series, and the glass I show here are quite thin, and not so many survived. Only a few models I think were produced in great numbers, such as tableware and some special models of vases and bowls.
I've got the impression that there was (and is!) Swedish glass in every Swedish household: Vases, pitchers, glasses, beer glasses, shot glasses, table ware, bottles, ashtrays, boxes, candle sticks, preserving jars, figurines... My grandmother's cupboards are full with it, and on her sideboards and tables there is Swedish glass. Be it art glass or glass for everyday use, the Swedes bought loads of Swedish glass. Even the Swedish cooperative called KONSUM sold mouthblown drinking glasses in boxes of 6. Back then a vase was a vase was a vase, and if you hold such a piece in hands today, after decades of heavy use, you feel almost terrified because it looks so blemished by what the water has done to it! You think "A sacrilege!" - but it actually was designed to hold flowers. Or just think of those beautiful items that actually were ashtrays! Distance of time lifts objects into other contexts, turns objects of utility into pieces of art. Still, I am nevertheless convinced that the designers (who called themselves "composer" = "kompositör"!) at that time really regarded their work more as making art than as simply producing vases, bowls, or ashtrays. And as I gather it from literature from that time, they were well respected for their work. But about this you must know much more, rebessin! What do you think about the self-conception of glass designers back then?
I believe, in the 1930s, 40s and 50s and 60s, the designers saw themselves as making art to the everyday products, and the everyday production was their only work. After that, I think the designers more have been seeing themselves as glass artists, who are primarily artists with a unique/small series production. Design of everyday goods have become more something that is seen as a "necessary evil", not the most important in their work. I think this may have been one of several contributing factors in the heavily decimation of the Swedish Kingdom of Crystal? The artists have perhaps not seen everyday production as their main task? My opinion is that the design from 1950s and 60s still holds good, and that much of what is produced today for everyday glass is lower artistic quality. The younger generation seems also to prefer this retro-glass from 1950s and 60s before the new production.