Gunnar Cyrén (1931-2013) was an award-winning Swedish product designer who initially trained as a metalsmith in Stockholm. He has, however, produced products in glass, wood and plastic.
He designed primarily for well-known Scandi makers, Orrefors and Dansk. My favourite designs of his are the series of silver plate animal figures for Dansk; they include hippos, pelicans, camels, blue whales, pigs, frogs, giraffes, antelope and elephants. Many come up for sale on eBay.
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Satirical artist, Ralph Steadman (b. 1936) is probably best known for his close relationship and portraits of fellow ‘Gonzo’, the journalist, Hunter S. Thompson.
After graduating from the London College of Printing, his early career was spent freelancing; creating illustrations for periodicals such as Punch, Private Eye and Rolling Stone. He’s also produced work for off-licence, Oddbins and designed a set of Halley’s Comet commemorative stamps for Royal Mail.
Over the decades, Steadman has produced (unflattering) cartoons of many US presidents – including Nixon, Bush Jr, Clinton and, most recently, Trump.
In addition to politics, he has published books of drawings of cats, dogs, birds, wine and whisky. Many of these that he has written and illustrated are available on Amazon. Check out Steadman’s own online shop for prints and other merchandise.
Additional image credits: © Ralph Steadman
Pat Albeck, (1930-2017), was a Hull-born, award-winning designer dubbed the ‘Queen of the tea towel’. She attended the Royal College of Art in 1950 to study Printed Textiles.
In her long and illustrious career, she worked for English stalwarts, the National Trust, Horrockses, Worcester Ware, Jonelle and John Lewis for whom she designed ‘Pansy’ and the incredibly successful, William Morris-inspired, ‘Daisychain’ (seen in two colourways, second row of images above).
Her designs grace fashion and furnishing fabrics, tea towels, tablecloths, wrapping paper, wallpaper, paper bags, metal trays and ceramics. Later on in her career, she produced beautiful paper collages (as seen in the bottom right image above).
Many of her vintage homeware items are readily available on eBay. There are also a number of books exploring her designs that are available on Abe Books and Amazon.
She collaborated with her daughter-in-law, Emma Bridgewater, on numerous designs. She once said:
You won’t find my designs in people’s living rooms; they are far more suited to the working areas of the home – the kitchen, the nursery and children’s bedrooms.
Check out this tour of her wonderful home in Oxfordshire.
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I just can’t get enough of vintage Scandinavian jewellery designers! Sigurd Persson is the latest in a number that we’ve featured here on Designer Desire.
Persson (1914-2003) was an important Swedish, post-war precious metalsmith and jewellery designer. In 1960, he had a career-boosting exhibition entitled 77 rings at the department store, Nordiska Kompaniet, where he showed… well… 77 of his ring designs. In 1964, he had his first international show of 150 pieces of his jewellery, commissioned by Georg Jensen. It took place at their store on 5th Avenue, New York. Oh to have been around at the time to have visited! The New York Times reported at the time:
A COLLECTION of jewelry that combines the clean, spare lines of Scandinavian design with a splendor that is partly old‐time barbaric and partly avant‐garde sophisticated goes on view today at Georg Jensen. The jewelry was created by Sigurd Persson, who is also known in his native Sweden for the chalices, crosses and candlesticks he has designed for churches.
The Persson collection can be divided roughly into two groups. One has a rather cool and airy look, remindful of the patterns of snowflakes. The other has a heavy, architectural appearance and plays up geometric shapes, as well as domes and arrangements of crossbars.
As you can see from the images above, he was so much more than a jewellery designer. In addition, he was a sculptor and product designer working in various mediums including metal, glass and plastic. In 1976, he designed the Swedish 5 krona coin which is still in circulation today.
Examples of his work can be found in the permanent collections of the V&A, MOMA and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
The series of books about his work (the bottom image, above) is currently available both singly and as a set on Abe Books.
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