This is an abbreviated version of “In a Man’s World” — Women Industrial Designers by Pat Kirkham, Bard Graduate Center (2000). I usually write about Nordic designers but this thorough article outlines a US viewpoint on the multiethnic American pioneers. Women are rarely mentioned in histories of 20th-century industrial design, yet they played a significantContinue reading “Women Industrial Designers in the US”
Author Archives: Jonas
Valentina Modig-Manuel
Valentina Modig-Manuel, née Modig in 1936 (June 25, 1907, Minsk – June 22, 2005, Turku), was a ceramic artist who, together with her husband, founded Finland’s first independent ceramics studio. Modig-Manuel’s parents had moved to Minsk at the end of the 19th century, but the family returned to Finland before World War I and settledContinue reading “Valentina Modig-Manuel”
Greta-Lisa Jäderholm-Snellman
Greta Lisa Jäderholm-Snellman was born in 1894 in Helsinki and passed away in 1973 in Alicante, Spain. She was one of the first female ceramists in Finland and worked in many different materials throughout her career. Born to parents Herman Jäderholm and Hilma Nyberg, she matriculated from Nya Svenska Samskolan in 1912 and later studiedContinue reading “Greta-Lisa Jäderholm-Snellman”
Ingeborg Lundin
Ingeborg Lundin was born in 1921 in Sweden and is most known for her extensive glass work at Orrefors from the 1940s up until the 1970s – her most famous work being ‘The Apple’. Her family moved to Chicago in the US when she was young but when her mother died and her father remarried,Continue reading “Ingeborg Lundin”
Raija Uosikkinen
Raija Liisa Uosikkinen (1923 – 2004) is mainly known for the illustrations and patterns she made for the design companies Arabia and Finel in the 1950-1970s. She studied porcelain painting at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki from 1944 to 1947, and immediately started working at the ceramics factory Arabia after graduating. HerContinue reading “Raija Uosikkinen”
Esteri Tomula
Ilta Esteri Tomula (1920 – 1998) was a Finnish ceramic artist and designer who did her main body of work at the Arabia ceramics factory in Helsinki, Finland from the late 1940s up until the beginning of the 1980s. She grew up in Helsinki but the family’s roots were in Satakunta, further up north inContinue reading “Esteri Tomula”
Gerda Thesleff
Gerda Thesleff was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1871 and she became a pioneer as one of the first studio ceramists in Finland. Thesleff initially studied to become a physical therapist in Stockholm but studied at the University School of Arts, Design and Architecture from 1898 to 1906 as well as in 1909-1910, where sheContinue reading “Gerda Thesleff”
Svea Winkler
Svea Winkler’s family originated from Germany but her grandfather Eduard Winkler had moved to Finland and founded a tinplate factory in the 1880s. Winkler graduated from secondary school in 1944 and continued her studies at the University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, from where she graduated in 1949 with a broad knowledge of design.Continue reading “Svea Winkler”
Elsa Gullberg
Elsa Gullberg, born Svensson in 1886 was a Swedish interior architect and textile designer, who pioneered the industrialisation of textile production. Gullberg grew up in a bourgeois family as the oldest child in a group of five children. She had intended to train as a doctor, but when her father went out of business andContinue reading “Elsa Gullberg”
Marjukka Pääkkönen-Paasivirta
The ceramics company Kupittaan Savi was founded in 1921 and was in business until 1969 when it was forced into bankruptcy. Starting in the 1950s the work of three designers stood out: Marjukka Paasivirta, Linnea Lehtonen and Orvokki Laine, and in early 1960s, Heidi Blomstedt. The company’s slogan was ”Objects of art, whose inexpensiveness amazesContinue reading “Marjukka Pääkkönen-Paasivirta”