Tag: Nanny Still

Designer Desire: Nanny Still

Montage of Nanny Still glass designs

Nanny Still (1926-2009) was a mid-century Finnish glass designer. She’s also known by her married name, Nanny Still-McKinney.

She designed for Riihimäki for approaching 3 decades; from her graduation from the University of Art and Design, Helsinki in 1947 until the 1970s. Some of her ranges include Polaris, Neptuna, Harlekiini (Harlequin), Fantasma, Majakka (Lighthouse) and Pajazzo.

In 1972, she was presented with the Pro Finlandia Medal for Meritorious Artists of the Order of the Lion of Finland.

In 1959, she and her husband moved to Belgium; whilst living there, she created designs for Rosenthal from 1977. Some of the Studio Linie series that she produced for them include Arabesk, Taiga and my favourite – Blütenregen – which roughly translates as ‘blossom shower’.

You can readily acquire examples of her glassware on eBay and Etsy and Tradera.

There’s a 1995 catalogue available entitled, Nanny Still, 45 Years of Design from an exhibition held at both Riihimäki Lasimuseo and the Glass Museum of Charleroi in Belgium.

Portrait of Nanny Still holding one of her Polaris bottlescredit

Additional image credits:
Bukowskis

Riihimaen collection

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collection of green vintage Riihimaen glass vases

We often speak of living with things for a while before they reach our shop – and this is a case in point. We steadily added glass vases to the windowsill on our landing over recent years, building up quite a collection. We’ve enjoyed looking at them each time we passed – the natural light enhancing the gorgeous olive green colourway & highlighting the different shapes… but now it’s time to let them go. Here they are pictured sitting atop a 1960s teak bookcase in our Picture House Antiques space – they look great grouped together.

detail of collection of green vintage Riihimaen glass vases

They’re all produced by Finnish glass company Riihimäki in the 1960s. For the sake of accuracy, we should attribute them to Riihimäen Lasi Oy as the company was renamed in the late 1930s, but they’re still often referred to as Riihimäki vases. The company had some very notable designers such as Aimo Okkolin, Timo Sarpaneva, Helena Tynell, Nanny Still, Tamara Aladin and Erkkitapio Siiroinen.

We’ve got them priced up between £15 & £35… and of course we’ve started a new windowsill collection!!