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1975-76, Arabia Kaj Franck Art Kiwi Yellow Special Version

Name: 1975-76, Arabia Kaj Franck Art Kiwi Yellow Special Version
Brand: Kaj Franck

$5,375List Price

About the Item

ART KIWI was designed by Kaj Franck and produced in limited edition from 1975-6. It is a jewel-like piece that is small but full of presence. This is a rare yellow version. The cut signature is "Kaj Franck Nuutajarvi Notsjo". There are no cracks or chips, and the condition is very good. Kaj Franck (1911 - 1989) was a Finnish designer. He modernized tableware by designing everyday items and influenced people's lifestyles. He studied furniture design at the University of Arts and Crafts in Helsinki (now Aalto University) from 1932, and after graduation worked in interior design, window displays, textiles, and glass design, etc. He also worked as a painter in the 1930s. In 1945, he became a designer for Arabia, and although he initially had no experience in ceramics, he emerged and became art director. Frank selected female designers and introduced many designs, and achieved international success with the "Kilta" series of tableware, which he began developing in the 1940s. At the time, Finland was short of supplies after the defeat in the war, and the compact, geometric design of the kilta made it easy to accommodate even small kitchens. Also, the kilta could be combined with old tableware, which influenced people's lifestyles, whereas conventional tableware was usually sold in sets of 12. In 1946, he won a glass design competition and became a designer at Iittala, and from 1950 he worked in glass design at Nutajärvi, where his tumbler 2744 from 1955 was selected for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. At Iittala, he also created artworks and applied his experience in experimental and free art production to mass production.

Creator:
Kaj Franck (Artist)
Dimensions:
Height: 1.38 in (3.5 cm)Width: 3.23 in (8.2 cm)Depth: 1.19 in (3 cm)
Style:
Arts and Crafts (In the Style Of)
Materials and Techniques:
Glass
Place of Origin:
Finland
Period:
1970-1979
Date of Manufacture:
1975
Condition:
Seller Location:
Musashino, JP
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU7969232283612

Shop All Kaj Franck

Kaj Franck

Kaj Gabriel Franck was a leading figure in 20th-century Finnish design, specializing in ceramics and glass. As the creative director of Arabia Ceramics, now part of Iittala, he, along with fellow Finns Timo Sarpaneva and Tapio Wirkkala, helped popularize the bright, warm and curvy aesthetic of Scandinavian modernism. Design Forum Finland’s Kaj Franck Design Prize, established in 1992 and awarded each year around his birthday, is among the country’s most prestigious honors for designers.

Franck was born in 1911 in the city of Vyborg, which now belongs to Russia, but was then part of the Grand Duchy of Finland. He studied furniture design at the Central School of Industrial Design in Helsinki, and after graduating in 1932, worked as a catalogue illustrator for the Riihimäki glassworks, exploring interior and textile design on the side.

Having served in the Finnish armed forces during World War II, Franck joined Arabia in 1945 as their head of design. He remained with the company for many years, steering its line of tableware in a dynamic new direction. Franck professed an aversion to superfluous ornament. His ceramic designs were nevertheless complex and eye-catching, animated with playful, geometric forms. One of his most famous creations for Arabia was the Origami dish from the early 1960s, a glossy all-white serving piece resembling a subtly folded piece of paper with four shallow sections for holding food.

Although his Arabia ceramics became household staples for consumers in Scandinavia and beyond, Franck is better known among collectors for his glass designs, particularly those he created for Iittala starting in the late 1940s. In a 1947 Iittala-sponsored glass competition, Franck shared the top prize with Tapio Wirkkala. In 1950, he designed the company’s iconic Kartio series of pressed-glass pitchers and glasses, which came in different colors that consumers could “mix and match” rather than having to buy a homogeneous set. In 1977, Franck redesigned the series, renamed Teemaa.

Franck’s designs for Iittala embodied the Finnish concept of pelkistetty, which literally means “reduced” and in the design world refers to the pared-down, minimal qualities of modernism. This principle, evidenced in objects like his elegant, unfussy sets of jewel-toned drinking glasses from the 1960s, informed Franck’s view of the manufacturing process as well. Critical of mass production and consumerism, he was one of the country’s first professionals in his field to advocate recycling. He became known as the “conscience of Finnish design,” a role he embraced as a professor and later artistic director at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki.

In honor of Franck’s 100th birthday, in 2011, Iittala reissued Kartio glasses, Teema tableware and Purnukka jars, among other of his designs that retain their contemporary feel decades after their creation.

Find vintage Kaj Franck glass, vases and other furniture and decor on 1stDibs.

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