DESIGNERS AT ORREFORS

EFVA ATTLING

Efva Attling (b. 1952) made her first piece of jewellery at the age of 11. At 16 she became a pupil of one of Sweden's foremost silver-smiths. After a 12-year career modeling for Eileen Ford, she worked as a singer and song-writer before she returning to the world of design. She has produced clothes for Levi's and H&M and since 1996 has been designing jewellery for her own Efva Attling Stockholm brand.
AMOUR VINCIT OMNIA is her first collection for Orrefors.


LENA BERGSTROM
 Lena Bergström (b. 1961) is a successful designer of both textiles and glass. She has received numerous public commissions and has won Excellent Swedish Design awards for six of her glass collections, among them Squeeze and Puck.
Lena received her artistic education at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm before coming to Orrefors to participate in a design project during 1993-94 – she was captivated by glass and has been affiliated to Orrefors since 1994.
She has an unerring sense of design; her work, soft of line yet graphically eloquent, represents a new generation of expression. Cyrano, Roma, Lightstones, Wa, Pastill and Sopranos are typical exponents of her art. Her most recent production includes the Colore vases, the black-and-white Pingvin, and Calypso, which is a refinement of Orrefors’ famous Fuga technique.


GUNNAR CYREN
 Born in 1931. Studied metallurgy at the Swedish State School of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm and is a certified silver and goldsmith. Came to Orrefors in 1959. Represented at the National Museum in Stockholm, the Röhss Museum of Arts and Crafts in Gothenburg, the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
"I have sat with glass on my knee throughout my adult life. It's hard to imagine what 1 would have done otherwise.
"That hot, yellow dough that becomes so clear and pure when it has hardened - for more than thirty years it's been the most natural material for me to fantasize with. I still try every day to achieve a little bit of everything I'd like to see finished. Thick or thin, transparent or opaque, plain glass or colored? There's always some untried variant.
"Tomorrow I'll do what I didn't get round to today. That's pretty good, isn't it?"


LARS HELLSTEN
 Lars Hellsten (b. 1933) studied sculpture at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm before coming to Orrefors in 1972. Besides Eden, a service inspired by nature, he is also the designer behind such collections as Corona, Odyssey, Neptunus and the heart-shaped Amour and My Heart.
Nature clearly inspires his art glass, too, including many grand pieces well suited to public spaces. His glass is characteristically massive and forceful, whether it be cast, mould-blown or free-blown.
He will be celebrating his seventieth birthday and more than thirty years at Orrefors with a large retrospective exhibition at the Orrefors Exhibition Hall between May and September, 2003.


JAN JOHANSSON
 Jan Johansson (born 1942) came to Orrefors in 1969 after training as a silversmith in Stockholm at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design. As an artist, he is interested in refining the optical effects of pure, sculptural crystal, as in his cut-glass Cascade, Horizon and Marin series.
Cut crystal sculptures set on a solid marble stand are an important component of his art glass production. Jan Johansson has actively sought new means of expression and has broadened the range of the Fuga technique.
One of his more recent successes is the Balans series, which, with its drop-shaped stem, lends balance both to the design and the hand.


HELEN KRANTZ
  		Helén Krantz (b. 1953) studied glass and ceramics at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Her interest in glass deepened during a scholarship year at Orrefors in 1986, and two years later she began her career as a designer.
Helén Krantz often works with patterns of small images to give the glass what she terms “rhythm”. She has worked in the Graal and Ariel art glass techniques and has also developed a technique of her own: Airpocket, a refinement of the venerable Ariel technique.
Examples of her contributions to the collection are her Zaza, Cruise, Quartet, New Corner and Excess series.


ERIKA LAGERBIELKE
 After studies in industrial design at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Erika Lagerbielke (b. 1960) brought her special talents to Orrefors in 1982. Now, for two decades, she has designed glass for Orrefors that has won praise from critics and customers alike. Among her major artistic successes are her Intermezzo, Merlot and Difference tableware, which have all won an Excellent Swedish Design award. Intermezzo has also received an International Tabletop Award and is one of Orrefors? best-selling services.
Colour and cut detail are characteristic of Erika Lagerbielke?s design, both in art glass and in the pieces she produces for the Orrefors collection.
Her track record lists such classics as Lancelot, Zodiak and Rosebud. Of her new products, Ceremony a set of festive glasses with prodigiously long stems, is especially worthy of note.


ANNE NILSSON
 Born in 1953. Studied ceramics and design at the Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, USA, and glass and ceramics at the Swedish State School of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. After having worked a few years as a designer at Höganäs Ceramics, she came to Orrefors in 1982. Represented at the National Museum in Stockholm.
"Hovering between extremes, and combining them in beautiful harmony. Hot and cold, soft and hard, transparent and colored traditional and innovative, artistic and functional.
"Expressing myself through the medium of glass - that's the basis of my artistic work. My own work is part of it. Together, in the team, we form a whole."
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MARTTI RYTKOENEN

Martti Rytkönen (b. 1960) studied glass and ceramics at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design, although it was glass that eventually captured his heart. He came to Orrefors on a scholarship and was taken on at the glassworks in 1994.
Pure, clear crystal is his imaginative medium of choice, one which he cuts, etches, sandblasts and engraves to bring forth new graphical motives and effects; but he also works with colour, employing art glass techniques such as Graal, Ariel and Ravenna. His motives are often narrative and full of humour.
Martti is the designer behind – among others – the massive Sigma, Avenue and Scala series; and, too, Papillon, whose outstretched wings float above the tabletop. This year’s new pieces include Galaxy and Samba.


PER B.SUNDBERG
 Per B. Sundberg (b. 1964) has an unusual background, at least among Orrefors designers, having gained personal experience of the glassblower’s craft in a studio environment. He trained at Capellagården on the island of Öland and at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. He was taken on at Orrefors in 1994 on the strength of his achievements during a special project.
Per B. Sundberg’s glass brings dynamism and verve to Orrefors, contrasting sharply with the more austere, classic elegance of the designs produced by his colleagues. His idiom is sculptural, with forms that are often close to the organic.
At Orrefors, he has developed his own technique, Fabula, a refinement of the classic Graal. Among his contributions to the collection are the Pipe series, with its functional bowls and pitchers for the modern kitchen, the Starfish votives, and the metallically mottled Earth. For 2003, he gives us Bop, a lively series of bowls and vases rendered in soft shades of pastel.


INGEGERD RAMAN
 Ingegerd Råman (b. 1943) is one of Sweden’s most renowned designers of glass. After graduating from the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, she worked for many years as a designer of ceramics – she ran her own studio – and as a glass designer, first at Johansfors, later at Skruf.
Over the years, Ingegerd Råman has received numerous awards for her work, and in 1995 was awarded a Swedish government professor’s title. In 1999, Ingegerd joined the talented team of artists at Orrefors.
Her collection for Orrefors includes Skyline, Slowfox and Undercover, all three of which are characterised by the purity of line and functionality that mark her approach to design.
For 2003, Ingegerd Råman presents a range of new pieces, including the Pond dishes, the I Ching vase and bowl series, and Savann.


GUNILLA ALLARD
 Gunilla Allard's approach to design - she is one of Sweden's foremost designers of fine furniture - is ideally suited to the Orrefors brand. Born in 1957, she was trained in interior design at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design (1983-88) and the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts.
She has also worked as a set designer and has helped in the production of several Swedish and foreign films, including Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Gunilla Allard has won any number of awards for her furniture design, including the prestigious Georg Jensen and Bruno Mathsson awards.
Since spring 2002 she has been working for Orrefors on a freelance basis. Stella, her first series, is a set of glasses in contemporary taste with an elegant frosted edge.


MALIN LINDAHL
 An innovative approach to established techniques characterises Orrefors’ new design talent, Malin Lindahl (b. 1973). After studies at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Malin Lindahl came to Orrefors on a scholarship in 1999 and has been affiliated to the glassworks since the spring of 2002. The lustre of clear crystal, its transparency and infinite potential for optical surprises, is what originally drew her to glass.
During her first year at Orrefors, she has looked backwards in time, probing the history of the glassworks and Swedish folk art. In her new Dizzy Diamond vases, she explores the classic optic technique to produce a set of functional, decorative vases with more than a hint of luxury.