Stoneware Vase by Berndt Friberg, Gustavsberg, Sweden, 1950s

Name: Stoneware Vase by Berndt Friberg, Gustavsberg, Sweden, 1950s
Brand: Berndt Friberg, Gustavsberg
Price: 1228.52 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Neat miniature stoneware vase by Berndt Friberg, in a slim, strict form. Dark blue hare’s fur glaze. Berndt Friberg was a Swedish ceramicist, renowned for his stoneware vases and vessels for Gustavsberg. His pure, composed designs with satiny, compelling glazes continue to fascinate and have given him a dedicated following of collectors all over the world. He was the designer, master thrower as well as glaze maker, a rare combination. Friberg came from a long family line of potters. He started as a handyman at Höganäs at the age of 13, leaving the factory five years later as a certified thrower. At Höganäs, he had worked with the serial production of the company’s trademark jugs, throwing a hundred or more of them every day during the years that he worked there. The craftsmanship, standard of quality and work ethic that he learned at Höganäs was the base for his development into one of the world’s foremost throwers. In his youth, he also went to technical school and studied drawing and modeling, however he did not partake in any art studies. Neither did he move in artistic circles, but seeing an exhibition of Gunnar Nylund’s stoneware in Helsingborg in the early 1930s made a deep impact. Before his employment at Gustavsberg in 1934, Friberg worked for other ceramics’ companies in Sweden and Denmark that broadened his experience. However getting the job as Wilhelm Kåge’s thrower at Gustavsberg was a major turning point in his career. Working with Kåge and subsequently Stig Lindberg brought new dimensions to Friberg’s work and life, moving away from the creation of utilitarian items to the aesthetic. He was revered by Kåge for his craftsmanship. During his first years at Gustavsberg he also developed his work with glazes. In 1941 he had is first exhibition in Stockholm, an event that marked his transition into an artist. Through Wilhelm Kåge, Berndt Friberg got in touch with a circle of ceramicists, connoisseurs, collectors and museum workers that influenced his artistic development. Chinese ceramics from the Sung period and the contemporary Nordic stoneware were held in particularly high regard. Friberg’s work came to be seen as the embodiment of the pure, balanced core of Nordic design. During his life long career, Friberg became deeply appreciated both by the broad public as well as connoisseurs and critics. The Swedish king Gustav VI Adolf was a major collector of his work and many of Friberg’s best pieces are part of the royal collection. He was awarded a gold medal at the Milano Triennale in 1947, 1951 and 1954 and won first prize at the Faenza International Ceramic Exhibition in 1965. He had 19 separate exhibitions and is represented at, among others, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Det Danske Kunstindustrimuseum in Copenhagen, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, MoMa in New York and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney. Literature: ”Berndt Friberg, Stengods Gustavsberg”, Arthur Hald & Marianne Landqvist, Keramiskt Centrum, AB Gustavsberg, 1979.

Creator:

Gustavsberg (Maker),Berndt Friberg (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 4.14 in (10.5 cm)Diameter: 1.38 in (3.5 cm)

Style:

Scandinavian Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Stoneware

Place of Origin:

Sweden

Period:

1950-1959

Date of Manufacture:

1950s

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use.

Seller Location:

Stockholm, SE

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU1638229825532

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Shop All Gustavsberg

Gustavsberg

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.