Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
The Gustavsberg porcelain factory was, for many decades, the largest ceramics maker in Sweden and home to some of the most innovative and ingenious makers of the past century. The company, founded in 1825, mass-produced a wide range of products: first decorative household items and tableware in the English style and later bathroom fixtures, including the first pressed-steel bathtubs that would oust heavy cast iron. But of first interest to collectors are the remarkable decorative works created in the Gustavsberg art pottery studio, in particular those by master ceramists Wilhelm Kåge, Berndt Friberg and Stig Lindberg.
Gustavsberg began producing some individually crafted, highly decorated and richly glazed pieces in the 1860s. While the forms of their mass-produced vessels and plates derived from English, Continental and Asian styles, a select few painters won acclaim for their personal artistry. Gunnar Wennerberg became known for his work in the organic Art Nouveau style, and Josef Ekberg, the company’s design chief from 1908 to 1917, was revered for his expert use of iridescent lusterware glazes and the sgraffito technique, in which a decorative pattern is incised in the surface of a clay pot before it is glazed and fired.
It was not until Ekberg’s successor, Wilhelm Kåge, opened Gustavsberg’s first dedicated art pottery studio that the work became widely recognized. Kåge’s “Argenta” series, which encompasses a variety of vessels coated with an oxidized green glaze and decorated in silver motifs, remains popular. Though perhaps his most striking works are his “Surrea” vases — white bisque porcelain in off-kilter forms inspired by Cubist paintings — and his “Farsta” wares, which include totemic, spindly footed stoneware vases and bowls with textured surfaces, glazed in brown, green and blue.
Kåge’s finest protégés, Berndt Friberg and Stig Lindberg, took over from Kåge as Gustavsberg’s design directors in 1945. Friberg was a master potter. He threw elegant, simple, symmetrical vases and bowls painstakingly coated in layer after layer of matte glazing to achieve a classic striated effect known as “rabbit’s fur.” Lindberg’s highly collectible studio ceramics fall into two principal categories: The first is made of white porcelain pieces in round, biomorphic or stylized natural forms. The second includes weightier vases — many with textured bodies and applied decorations — glazed in deep, earthy colors. As you will see from the works on these pages, Gustavsberg was a bastion of creativity and precise artistry that turned out a remarkable range of works whose style still resonates with lovers of Scandinavian design.
1940s Swedish Mid-Century Modern Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Earthenware, Terracotta
1940s Swedish Mid-Century Modern Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Earthenware, Terracotta
Late 20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
1930s French French Provincial Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
1950s Swiss Mid-Century Modern Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Concrete
1940s Italian Art Deco Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
Mid-20th Century European Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Porcelain
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
18th Century Antique Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
1920s English Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
1960s French Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Terracotta
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Ceramic, Pottery, Terracotta
20th Century English Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Pottery, Terracotta, Earthenware
Mid-19th Century Swiss Mid-Century Modern Antique Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Concrete
1970s Swedish Scandinavian Modern Vintage Gustavsberg Building and Garden Elements
Stoneware