NILS LANDBERG (Sweden, 1907-1991) for ORREFORS.Soliflower vase, ca.1950-60.Clear, smoked glass.

NILS LANDBERG (Sweden, 1907-1991) for ORREFORS.
Soliflower vase, ca.1950-60.
Clear, smoked glass.
Signed. Model 3538/158.
Orrefors label at the bottom.
Provenance: Private collection, Spain between 1970-1990.
Measurements: 34 x 14 x 7 cm.
Nils Landberg was a Swedish glass designer. After finishing his studies at the School of Industrial Design in Gothenburg, he joined the Orrefors printmaking school and stayed on as a trainee designer. His early commercial work was limited, but in the late 1940s he developed the slender glass for which he is now famous. The Tulip series dates from 1953. Over the years new shapes and colours were regularly added to the prototypes. Landberg remained at Orrefors until his retirement in 1972, refining his early designs each year and adding new ones.
The Swedish glassworks Orrefors owes its name to the village in Småland where it was founded, a place of craft and industrial production since the 18th century. In the 20th century, the name Orrefors would become synonymous with good Swedish glass. In 1897, the merchant Johan August Samuelson bought the village's complex of smithies and sawmills and introduced glass production the following year, initially producing everyday household and medical glassware, such as bottles and jars. When Consul Johan Ekman became the new owner of Orrefors in 1913, he appointed Albert Ahlin to run the glassworks facilities. Ahlin initiated a new era in Swedish glass production when he acquired the Sandvik glassworks under the Orrefors umbrella and brought in skilled craftsmen and designers to develop new collections. In 1914, Orrefors began to manufacture glass. Soon after, master glassmakers Simon Gate and Edward Hald joined the company to design new designs and shapes, focusing on engraving and overlay techniques. They also began experimenting with the innovative Graal technique, developed at Orrefors by master glassblower Knut Bergqvist. In 1917, Gate and Hald introduced figurative engraved patterns. Orrefors' reputation for excellence spread internationally in the mid-1920s; first as a result of Orrefors' presentation at the Gothenburg Exhibition in 1923, and then through participation in the historic Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925, where Orrefors and the artists themselves were awarded the Grand Prix. In 1928, the designer-artist Vicke Lindstrand joined Orrefors and introduced a more sculptural and modernist aesthetic. Following Orrefors and Lindstrand's success at the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, the company became increasingly associated with simple, subtle forms in the post-war period. In 1946, Orrefors hired architect-designer Carl Fagerlund to expand its glass lighting offering. Over the years, Orrefors designers developed a number of new glass manufacturing techniques. Vicke Lindstrand and Edvin Öhrström introduced Ariel in the 1930s, while in the 1940s Sven Palmqvist introduced the Kraka and Ravenna techniques. Nils Landberg's slender Tulpan (1957) and Ingeborg Lundin's delicate Äpplet (1955) - both icons of mid-century modern Swedish design - were created using the Fuga technique. The 1960s are associated with Gunnar Cyrén's Pop glass, and since the 1970s, designers such as Olle Alberius, Eva Englund, Lars Hellsten, Anne Nilsson, Erika Lagerbielke and Helen Krantz have contributed to Orrefors' rich heritage.