As European industry foundered in the devastation of World War I, Sweden's glassworks were finding their own identity. Cut off by the war from outside design influences, the producers had looked at home for creative inspiration -- with felicitous results. While its competitors struggled to recover, Sweden was positioned for expansion into the international marketplace.
Glass had been produced in Sweden since the Sixteenth Century, when King Gustav Vasa, realizing that the import of workers was less costly than the import of finished wares, brought blowers, first from Venice and then Germany, to establish the first glassworks in Stockholm. Beginning with window glass for Swedish nobility, the industry expanded with a growing domestic market and by the Eighteenth Century factories were scattered across the country, producing green bottles for beer and wine as well as drinking vessels.
The major growth of the Swedish glass industry, however, came in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, when 77 glassworks were founded, more than half of these in the Southeastern area of Smaland, which became "the kingdom of glass." The largest by far was Kosta, founded in 1742, which had several hundred employees. (Orrefors, which was to usurp its position of dominance, was not founded until 1898).
With the industrial revolution, molded pressed glass met the demand for everyday service and the factories prospered. In 1828 Kosta began making cut glass, which dominated production until after the turn-of-the-century. Design inspiration came from abroad, with most glassworks producing virtually the same models, copied from European catalogs.
The industry's transformation came with the recruitment of outside artists, who, working with skilled glassblowers, brought an influx of creativity to Swedish glass. The Swedish Society for Crafts and Industrial Design (Svenska Slojdforeningen) in its effort to develop better arts products, had been highly critical of Swedish glass, suggesting that original design could help Sweden compete more effectively in the international marketplace.
Although Kosta had employed artist Gunnar Wennerberg in 1900, the most dramatic changes in glassware design did not occur until almost two decades later Ï and then at Orrefors, whose management was more supportive of new ideas. The directive of Orrefors' president -- "Make something beautiful. Take all the time you need" -- is quoted in virtually every reference to Swedish design.
The upstart firm saw the possibility of establishing its reputation through art glass and, having wooed master blower Knut Bergqvist from Kosta, hired first Simon Gate (in 1916) and Edvard Hald the following year, to create objects for a competition for the Swedish Home Exhibition of 1917. In an atmosphere of experimentation and creative challenge, the company refined the art of glassmaking with a series of brilliant technical and design innovations.
The first of these was the graal technique. Named after the Holy Grail, it grew out of experiments seeking to soften the edges of overlay design. It involved adding one or more colored layers over or under a glob of clear glass, which were then decorated by cutting, etching, or engraving. Finally, the glass was reheated and coated with a layer of transparent metal to create distinctive effects contrasting clear and colored areas.
Though graal brought Orrefors attention, it was engraving, a process previously used only for monograms, which brought it, and Swedish glass, to international renown. Having founded its own engraving school in 1922, Orrefors was positioned to develop the technique. Gate and Hald used it to design masterpieces of overall decor, whose motifs wound around the glass, following its contours or playing off them. These pieces won gold medals in Paris, generating the phrase "Swedish Grace." After 1925, other firms made engraved glass, but that of Orrefors was superior.
In ariel glass -- a variation of graal introduced in 1937 -- a stencil applied to an overlaid blank is cut with high-pressure sand. A thin layer of glass is applied over that, leaving pockets of air which remain after additional glass is gathered over it. The resulting bubbles have a random irregularity which intensify the depth and resonance of color. The first ariel pieces, introduced in 1937, were developed by Viktor (Vicke) Linstrand with blower Bergqvist. Edvin Ohrstrom also created exceptional works in this technique, which was named for the character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
The birth of functionalism, at the 1930 Stockholm Fair, gave rise to a different look in glass-heavy forms. One motif replaced all-over decoration, exploiting the potential of glass to create effects not possible with any other material. Mykene, another refinement of graal; optic glass; and, later, fuga glass, shaped in a mold by centrifugal force, were among the other developments at Orrefors, which enjoyed an explosion of creativity during this decade.
There were several factors whose combined influence helps to explain the extraordinary development of the Swedish glass industry in this century. The first was, as noted, the enlistment of outside artist to work with the factories. The second was the competition between glass works which stimulated the search for new design and technology. The country's neutrality was another factor. Though hampered by restrictions on raw material imports, the factories suffered no physical damage (in fact, Sweden continued to participate in Milan Triennales during World War II), so were able to recover rapidly afterwards.
Perhaps the most important factor of the development, and certainly in the marketing, of the new style was the use of international trade fairs, which became not only vehicles for national promotion but justifications for concentrated efforts to develop exhibition-worthy designs. Finally, the unique nature of the glasshouse communities encouraged creative innovations. In an environment insulated from the outside world, artists and draftsmen were free to experiment and seek new means of expression in a medium that responded to their shared talents. With artists coming from other fields, unhampered by preconceptions about the limits of the material, the results were extraordinary developments which forever altered the nature of art glass and brought an international reputation for Swedish glass as possibly the world's finest -- a reputation which, though the industry itself is far smaller, it retains to this day.
Focusing on the key years in which Swedish glassworks partnered with artists, the exhibition at Bard Graduate Center has collected almost 160 works from museums and private collections in Scandinavia and the United States to illustrate the varied and distinctive creations of the most important designers, craftsmen, and factories of the time. It was curated by Gunnel Holmer, curator of glass at Sweden's Smalands Museum; and Derek E. Ostergard, associate director, and Nina Stritzler-Levine, director of exhibitions, both of the Bard Graduate Center.
According to Ostergard, planning for the exhibition began more than four years ago, before the opening of the Center in the fall of 1993. Learning that an exhibition of Swedish glass, which Bard had sought for its gallery, could not travel beyond its original venues in Japan, he and director Susan Weber Soros determined to mount a new one, and partnered with Sweden's Smaland Museum to organize it. The fruits of these transcontinental labors is a presentation that includes some of the most important pieces of Swedish glass produced in this century. "I think we've gotten the best possible of the available objects," Nina Strizler-Levine asserts with pride.
Among the significant works in the exhibition are two versions -- one clear glass and one overlaid with deep blue -- of Edwin Hald's celebrated "Fireworks" vase, designed for Orrefors in 1921 and exhibited internationally in Paris and America. This whimsically-etched design is, according to Ostergard, owned by more museums than any other piece of Swedish glass.
Other outstanding pieces are the intricately-etched "Paris Vase" by Simon Gate, also for Orrefors, commissioned by Stockholm as a gift to Paris in 1922, and exhibited at the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industrielles Modernes in 1925; the octopus-topped "Pearlfisher," a 1931 sculpture by Vicke Lindstrand for Orrefors, shown in 1933 at Chicago's Century of Progress; and the 1925 Simon Gate bowl called "Heaven and Hell," exhibited in Paris in 1925 and selected for the American Association of Museum's landmark traveling exhibition introducing "l'art moderne" to this country.
Although more than half of the works shown are from Orrefors, whose creativity far exceeded that of other Swedish glassworks during this period, there are fine pieces by Elis Bergh, Ewald Dahlstag, and Sven-Erik Skawonius for Kosta, as well as examples from Eda, Elme, Johansfors, Limmared, Maleras, Reijymyre, Skruf, and Strombergshyttan -- reminders that Swedish creativity was not limited to the major firms.
Despite its title, the inclusion of works dating from 1901 put the interwar period into historical context, showing examples of Swedish glass design influenced by Art Nouveau and some early efforts to translate indigenous motifs to the engraved overlay techniques popularized by French producers such as Galle. The most exceptional of these is a 12-inch high vase designed by Simon Gate in 1916, in striking violet flashed with several overlay colors and engraved with motifs of bluebells, butterflies, and foliage.
The distinctive intaglio engraving used through the late 1920s is represented in a number of art pieces, including a 1920 Edwin Hald bowl inspired by Matisse, in whose studio he had trained (a great success, this piece was exhibited in the San Francisco's Golden Gate exhibition in 1939).
Works with sophisticated abstract motifs and contrasts of color in the graal technique that first brought Orrefors to prominence -- massive forms with deep, olive-cut ornament and examples showing a range of shaping and decorating techniques -- illustrate the versatility of both the Swedish creative teams and the material that inspired them.
The design of the exhibition makes the most of a smallish and somewhat awkward space which sacrifices precious footage to place as many works as possible where they may be viewed from all sides. Circling the showcases, it is possible to enjoy the play of light on reflective surfaces and the subtle variations of form. Excellent lighting brings out the luminosity of the glass, with showcases painstakingly placed to avoid distracting reflections.
In addition to the exhibition pieces and luxury objects which are the indisputable stars of the show, such everyday items as stemware, perfume bottles, clock cases and lighting fixtures are reminders that the glassworks were producing more than artware for the luxury market.
It is the artware, however, that seduces the eye. Many of the pieces are unique, others few of a kind, while some were produced in multiples over a period of years. Certainly, so wide a range of works have never before been assembled in this country. Complementing the display is a number of original drawings showing how each piece began.
The impressive catalog accompanying the exhibition is a story in itself. The first English-language publication to deal with Swedish glass of this period, it includes essays by a Swedish and American scholars. Meticulously-detailed descriptions of the objects take pains to credit the blowers and engravers as well as the artists who created each design. A comprehensive glossary clarified glassware terminology and the book includes abbreviated histories of the major Swedish glassworks as well as a comprehensive bibliography. Edited by Derek Ostergard and Nina Stritzler-Levine, the 336-page publication is copiously illustrated. Since the only comprehensive work on contemporary Swedish glass, a two-volume German publication by Ricke and Gronert, Swedish Glass to 1960, is not available in the United States, the catalogue, published by Yale University Press, should be an important addition to glass scholarship.
Principal lenders to the Bard Graduate Center exhibition are the Orrefors and Kosta Boda Museum, the Smalands Museum and the Art Collection of Stockholm University, with additional loans from the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musee de l' Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, as well as private collectors in Sweden and the United States.
"The Brilliance of Swedish Glass" remains on view at the Bard Graduate Center, 18 West 86 Street in New York City, through March 2, after which it will travel to Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va.
