Friday, June 15, 2012

Gunnel Nyman

Gunnel Nyman
Gunnel Nyman (1909-1948) was a Finnish glass artist. She began designing for Riihimaki while still a student at the Central School of Industrial Design in Helsinki in the early 1930s. She also started designing for Nuutajarvi Notsjo and Iittala in 1946.

Nyman's untimely death in 1948 while still in her thirties cut short her brilliant career, but in the brief span of years she worked, many believe she defined the essence of the Scandinavian aesthetic for glass. Her influence on Finnish and Swedish designers who followed is inestimable.

The last two years of her career, after she began working for Nuutajarvi and Iittala, were her most intense and productive. Her most famous designs came from this period.

The quality of light as embodied in glass was a major interest for Nyman, as was the instant solidification of the glass mass. She believed that form, proportion and decoration were only necessary insofar as they enhanced the qualities inherent in the glass, so her pieces were simple and elegant. In the early 1930s she began designing bubbled glass objects. By the late 1940s, she had refined this technique and created pieces will small, even-sized and evenly spaced bubbles to form a veil on the inner or outer surface of her pieces.

Nyman was awarded a posthumous gold medal at the 1951 Milan Triennale. Her best known designs include Bridal Veil, Serpentine, Chiffon and String of Pearls vases.

From designed-in-finland.com and abstracta-art.com


Bridal Veil vase
abstracta-art.com
String of Pearls vase
abstracta-art.com
Chiffon vase
bukowskis.com
Serpentine vase
modernity.se
Calla vase
bukowskis.com
Munankuori bowl
moma.org
Baroque vase
hagelstam.fi
Family vase
bukowskis.com
Pendant lamp
bukowskis.com

10 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Me too...especially the String of Pearls and the Serpentine vases.

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  2. All are so elegantly understated and I love the way all the pieces play with light! Love the infused bubbles!

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    Replies
    1. Again it goes to show that a simple form, elegantly executed, is the most beautiful and timeless.

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  3. So graceful and gorgeous. Hmm,reminds me of someone....

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    Replies
    1. You can tell that she was a true lady of the ilk of Helen Hartman, huh?

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  4. Replies
    1. I think that's my favorite too. So simple, yet so sophisticated.

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  5. Thank you for writing about this artist! Her work is amazing.

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    Replies
    1. I didn't know much about her till I researched this post. It was a delight for me to get to know her work.

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