The Brilliance of Swedish Glass, 1918-1939

The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.

The Brilliance of Swedish Glass, 1918-1939: An Alliance of Art and Industry explored the union between Swedish glassmakers and the nation’s most prominent artists and illustrated some of Sweden’s major contributions to 20th-century design.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden and its glass industry lacked industrial growth and international presence in applied arts. The first stirrings of change came after the 1914 Baltic Exhibition in Malmo. By the late 1920s glass had become the barometer of Swedish modernist design, helping to define the wide parameters of the Swedish response to modernism. In the 1930s, well-made functional objects, without the ornament that had made its glass so popular in the 1920s, expanded the base of Swedish modernism. After the nation’s glass industry diminished during the Second World War, Swedish design regained its position of international prominence in the postwar period. By the end of the 20th century, Swedish glass continued to represent a remarkable alliance of art and industry.

The exhibition examined the artistic and technical complexities of glass as a medium as well as the broader implications of the industry’s development in Sweden in the 20th century. Among the object highlights were works produced for Orrefors Glassworks by glassmakers Edward Hald, Simon Gate, and Vicke Lindstrand and for the Kosta Glasshouse by Elis Bergh and Sven Erik Skawonius.

On view at Bard Graduate Center from November 21, 1996–March 2, 1997, The Brilliance of Swedish Glass was curated by Nina Stritzler-Levine, Derek E. Ostergard, and Gunnel Holmer.

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