Mid2Mod: Bruno Mathsson

Friday, March 30, 2012

Bruno Mathsson

Bruno Mathsson (1907-1988) was born in Värnamo, Sweden. His father was Karl Mathsson, a fifth generation master cabinetmaker, from whom he began learning the craft at an early age.

In 1929 he had an opportunity to begin borrowing books and magazines from the Röhsska Arts and Crafts Museum in Gothenburg. Curator Gustaf Munthe soon was sending boxes of books to him by train, and Mathsson educated himself by studying them.

In 1930 he won a scholarship and an opportunity to go to Stockholm to an exhibition that lauched the Swedish functionalist movement. It was at this time that he began to move away from the tradition designs of his father's workshop and develop a design style of his own.

Early in 1936 Munthe gave Mathsson the opportunity to have a one-man show, and its success marked the recognition of Mathsson as an important Swedish designer. A year later he was represented at the Paris Expo and won a Grand Prix for his Paris daybed. In attendance was Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., manager of the design department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Two years later he ordered chairs from Mathsson for the museum.

During 1948-1949 Mathsson and his wife Karin visited the United States, and he was introduced by Kaufmann to some of the country's foremost architects. He returned to Sweden and began building his famous glass houses.

In the 1960s Mathsson and Piet Hein designed the Super-Elliptical and Super-Circle tables with Spanlegs. Some of his other famous designs are the Pernilla chair, the Eva chair and the Jetson chair.

From bruno-mathsson-int.com