Timo Sarpaneva
Encyclopedia
Timo Sarpaneva was an influential Finnish
designer, sculptor, and educator best known in the art world for innovative work in glass, which often merged attributes of display art objects
with utilitarian designations. While glass remained his most commonly addressed medium, he worked with metal, wood, textiles, and porcelain
(china). Sarpaneva has entered homes around the world through his industrial design of upscale, artistically conceived items including cast-iron cookware and porcelain
dinnerware. His work was among the key components that helped to launch Finland's reputation as a trailblazer of design.
began to make use of concavities in his human sculptures, and some of his other work with glass is suggestive of that experience.
) in Helsinki in 1948 and received a PhD later. Shortly after he began to work with glass, he won the Iittala
competition in engraved glass and was hired by the company in 1951 (other sources mention the previous year) as a designer and director of exhibitions. He won his first Grand Prix at the 1954 Milan
Triennale
for his clear glass series, which also went to his already well-established colleague at Iittala, Tapio Wirkkala
. In 1956, Sarpaneva embraced colored glass as he developed Iittala's new upscale i-linija (i-line) series of plates, bottles, and other objects. Radical for that time, his involvement extended to the design of the packaging and of Iittala's name with a prominent, white, lower-case letter i in a red circle as the new line's trademark, which the company then adopted as its universal logo through the 21st century. i-linija won him his second Grand Prix at the 1957 Milan Triennale, where he also received a Grand Prix for his design of the Finnish exhibition.
In the meantime, he worked on his English at the newly opened Helsinki branch of Berlitz International in the second half of the 1950s, soon began to teach at his alma mater, including a course in linoleum block printing for students of textile design, and became full professor in 1976. Having already worked for the textiles association PMK in the 1950s (and planned an eventually canceled 1957 Triennale
garment show for Marimekko
in an early recognition that ready-made fashion was beginning to be appreciated as an industrial art), he continued in the 1960s with cloth designs for Tampella
and acted as an artistic director for the Swedish textile company Kinnasand between 1964 and 1972, after which he started his association with the German porcelain
producer Rosenthal. He commuted between Helsinki and Murano
(Venice
, Italy) for six years in the 1990s, making mostly sculptures with the Venini glassmakers and the renowned craftsman Pino Signoretto. All along, despite a hiatus in the 1970s when Iittala sought to cancel some of its glass production techniques, Sarpaneva maintained a creative relationship with his first employer for most of his productive life. He was survived by his four adult children and his wife of nine years, Marjatta née Svennevig, whom he married at Helsinki Cathedral
in 1997 after 30 years of living together and who designed his tombstone at the Hietaniemi Cemetery
, now closed to further burials, the last resting place of numerous people influential in Finnish history, politics, and culture.
, from whom Sarpaneva received the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland
in 1958 for his success at the Milan
Triennale
, and to the names of some of his internationally marketed production, Finlandia for a "bark glass" vase series and Suomi ("Finland") for a tableware design. He designed glass vases and silver dinnerware for the presidential residence Mäntyniemi
opened in 1993. The image of Finland as a trailblazer of design has long been based on its post-World War II success and on the reputation of Sarpaneva and a handful of its other "designer heroes."
The cast-iron pot (cauldron, casserole) Sarpaneva designed in 1959 (production from 1960), which made it onto a Finnish postal stamp in 1998, became emblematic of his creative approach – modern in a way that did not lean too heavily on novelty, it rethought a traditional piece, put history and humanity back into industrial design, and made "a damn good reindeer stew in the proces." Having reintroduced it to market in 2003, the manufacturer, Iittala, considers its timeless and ingenious design to be as functional in the kitchen as it is appealing on the dining table. Work like Sarpaneva's proved that the intrinsic quality of materials reduced to their most basic, sensuous essence, shaped by the creative imagination of an artist, beat all the kitsch in the world.
Sarpaneva thought the turning point in his career came for him at the age of 22 when he received the second prize in the Riihimäki Glass
Design Contest – second only to his college professor, Arttu Brummer, who won the top award. Sarpaneva worked intermittently with metal, wood, textiles, ceramics, and porcelain
(china), while glass remained his main medium from his earliest awards for much of his life, both in industrial design and in display art objects
. Trained as a graphic designer, he spent the majority of his life in industrial design while seeing himself more as an artist than a designer. But he discounted the option with a joke when confronted with rumors that Andy Warhol
had suggested Sarpaneva's fabrics were masterstrokes ready to be framed as paintings. Nevertheless, Sarpaneva's international career opened up with a comparable feat in textile design when he received a Silver Medal at the 1951 Milan
Triennale
for his submission Kukko, an embroidered tea cozy styled as a rooster (hence its Finnish name) with the bird's serrated red comb as its handle, mistaken by some at the exhibition for a carnival hat.
in the mid-1960s brought robotization to cloth pattern production. Close to 2,000 automated machine settings, which Sarpaneva called "industrial monotypes," enabled extensive variation in color schemes, from intense crimson and turquoise to subtle pea green, cream, and black. Blurring, merging, and distortion resulted in fluid psychedelic patterns and added another layer to the number of options the modified two-sided rotary printing opened for its manufacturers and marketers.
(china) full-line dinner service Suomi ("Finland"), on which he worked four four years (some sources say three or two). Commissioned by the German company Rosenthal, which first considered the concept too simple, it was launched in its "studio-line" in 1976. The originally all-white modern classic with gently rounded corners was made part of the permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou
in Paris as an example of contemporary design and has remained in production through the 2010s. Sarpaneva said his inspiration came from the forms of rocks rounded and polished by moving water. It combined the circle with the square, a merger of the organic forms of the craft tradition and the straight lines associated with modern industry. The pieces of the chip-resistant service appealed to the hand as well as the eye. Big, comfortable handles made the cups sturdy and easy to hold, rims on the plates prevented spills, tea and coffee pots poured without dripping.
Still in the 1970s, Rosenthal made Suomi the canvass for high-art surface designs limited to 500-set runs by artists renowned at the time, including Salvador Dalí
and Victor Vasarely
. The company also adjusted Suomi for customers looking to inject self-expression. It manufactured Suomi in a parallel Porcelaine noire series and allowed customers to mix and purchase the luminous white and uncommon black-porcelain pieces in any desired contrastive combination. In a separate modification, the producer catered to those seeking more opulence with gold- and platinum-trimmed Suomi series. Such marketing was not always appreciated on aesthetic grounds with the argument that the decorated versions of various sorts related poorly to Sarpaneva's refined shapes, and that Suomi was extraordinary only in plain white.
Sarpaneva's first international recognition in glass work came with a Grand Prix from the Milan
Triennale
in 1954 that included Sarpaneva's series Orkidea ("Orchid"), Kajakki ("Kayak"), and Lansetti ("Lancet") adopted for production by Iittala. He said of his favorite material:
in 1964-1970 brought about another innovation, mass-produced household objects each of which was, in a way, exclusive. The collection was distinguished by the presence of thick glass with a rough surface that brought to mind snow and ice, replacing in one blow the smooth, thin, streamlined colored glass of the 1950s. Sarpaneva recalled:
," renamed from Jäävuori, "Iceberg"), for the Finnish pavilion at Expo 67
in Montreal in 1967. It was then bought by the City of Tampere
and remained in storage until 1988 when it was installed in the entrance lobby of the KoskiKeskus shopping mall opened in downtown Tampere
in March of that year. The 12 m (36 ft.) long and 6.4 m (21 ft.) wide triangle is suspended from the ceiling and filled with 488, up to 1 m (3.3 ft.) high, faceted and noduled glass turrets. Sarpaneva expanded his original concept by attaching Meren peili ("Mirror of the Sea") below Ahtojää, mirror panes interpreting the surface of the sea (the Baltic Sea is partly covered with ice around Finland in the winter, but ice-free in the summer), in order to reminisce on fluidity and the cycle of life, which also subsumed a Finnish take on the two manifestations of the country's denotative multitude of lakes – white ice in the winter and a blue mirror in the summer. Nordic art specialists often compared Sarpaneva's ability to capture light along with its hues to looking through ice beneath the sea.
executives commented on growth in resale value especially with Sarpaneva's glass creations for the Italian Venini company. Older objects from the same series would be more valuable, for instance, an item from the first year of the Kajakki (Kayak) series, which ran from 1953 to 1959, might fetch 50% more than the same object from the last year of production. Bargain hunters occasionally reported high returns, including the purchase of a Sarpaneva glass plate for 25 cents in a garage sale, which turned out to have a resale value of US$1,000.
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
designer, sculptor, and educator best known in the art world for innovative work in glass, which often merged attributes of display art objects
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
with utilitarian designations. While glass remained his most commonly addressed medium, he worked with metal, wood, textiles, and porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
(china). Sarpaneva has entered homes around the world through his industrial design of upscale, artistically conceived items including cast-iron cookware and porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
dinnerware. His work was among the key components that helped to launch Finland's reputation as a trailblazer of design.
Early
As with his grandfather's anvil prominently displayed to introduce visitors to his 2002 retrospective exhibition at the Design Museum in Helsinki, Timo Sarpaneva narrated his family heritage as that of craftsmen. He would mention his maternal grandfather, a blacksmith, whose profession Sarpaneva claimed as his family's tradition "for hundreds of years," and said others were textile artists noting his mother used to make tea cozies. His one-year-older brother Pentti was a graphic designer and made bronze and silver jewelry. With hyperbole, Timo Sarpaneva said he already knew in the womb that he would become a craftsman. His professional response to glass was related to his early memories of molten metal in his grandfather's workshop. A childhood sensation that he would periodically recount later as inspirational for his innovative approach to glass objects spoke of transparency and space:At the age of eight or nine, I held a piece of ice in my hand until I'd made a hole in it with my warm finger.Sarpaneva's organic hole in a glass body then appeared at roughly the same time as Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
began to make use of concavities in his human sculptures, and some of his other work with glass is suggestive of that experience.
Employ
Sarpaneva graduated from the Institute for Industrial Arts (the forerunner of the University of Arts and DesignUniversity of Art and Design Helsinki
Aalto University School of Art and Design , known commonly as TaiK, is the largest art university in the Nordic countries, and was founded in 1871. Media Centre Lume – the National Research and Development Center of audiovisual media – is also located in the university...
) in Helsinki in 1948 and received a PhD later. Shortly after he began to work with glass, he won the Iittala
Iittala
Iittala is a Finnish design company specialising in houseware objects made on the principle of "modern Scandinavian design". [N.B. The official logo of the Company is all in lower case - iittala. Using upper case for the initial i can cause some confusion as it may be mistaken for an L.] The Iittala...
competition in engraved glass and was hired by the company in 1951 (other sources mention the previous year) as a designer and director of exhibitions. He won his first Grand Prix at the 1954 Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
Triennale
Triennale
La Triennale di Milano is a design museum and events venue in Milan, Italy, located inside the Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. It hosts exhibitions and events which highlight contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture,...
for his clear glass series, which also went to his already well-established colleague at Iittala, Tapio Wirkkala
Tapio Wirkkala
File:Wirkkala.jpgTapio Wirkkala was a Finnish designer and sculptor, a major figure of post-war design. His work ranges from plastic ketchup bottles and metalware to glass, ceramics and plywood in a range of styles. He designed the Finnish markka banknotes introduced in 1955...
. In 1956, Sarpaneva embraced colored glass as he developed Iittala's new upscale i-linija (i-line) series of plates, bottles, and other objects. Radical for that time, his involvement extended to the design of the packaging and of Iittala's name with a prominent, white, lower-case letter i in a red circle as the new line's trademark, which the company then adopted as its universal logo through the 21st century. i-linija won him his second Grand Prix at the 1957 Milan Triennale, where he also received a Grand Prix for his design of the Finnish exhibition.
In the meantime, he worked on his English at the newly opened Helsinki branch of Berlitz International in the second half of the 1950s, soon began to teach at his alma mater, including a course in linoleum block printing for students of textile design, and became full professor in 1976. Having already worked for the textiles association PMK in the 1950s (and planned an eventually canceled 1957 Triennale
Triennale
La Triennale di Milano is a design museum and events venue in Milan, Italy, located inside the Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. It hosts exhibitions and events which highlight contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture,...
garment show for Marimekko
Marimekko
Marimekko is a Finnish company based in Helsinki that has made important contributions to fashion, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. They are particularly noted for brightly-colored printed fabrics and simple styles, used both in women's garments and in home furnishings.- Foundation :Marimekko was...
in an early recognition that ready-made fashion was beginning to be appreciated as an industrial art), he continued in the 1960s with cloth designs for Tampella
Tampella
Oy Tampella Ab was a Finnish heavy industry manufacturer, a maker of paper machines, locomotives, military weaponry, as well as wood-based products such as packaging. The company was based mainly in the city of Tampere....
and acted as an artistic director for the Swedish textile company Kinnasand between 1964 and 1972, after which he started his association with the German porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
producer Rosenthal. He commuted between Helsinki and Murano
Murano
Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about 1.5 km north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 . It is famous for its glass making, particularly lampworking...
(Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Italy) for six years in the 1990s, making mostly sculptures with the Venini glassmakers and the renowned craftsman Pino Signoretto. All along, despite a hiatus in the 1970s when Iittala sought to cancel some of its glass production techniques, Sarpaneva maintained a creative relationship with his first employer for most of his productive life. He was survived by his four adult children and his wife of nine years, Marjatta née Svennevig, whom he married at Helsinki Cathedral
Helsinki Cathedral
Helsinki Cathedral is an Evangelical Lutheran cathedral of the Diocese of Helsinki, located in the centre of Helsinki, Finland. The church was originally built as a tribute to the Grand Duke, Nicholas I, the Tsar of Russia and until the independence of Finland in 1917, it was called St...
in 1997 after 30 years of living together and who designed his tombstone at the Hietaniemi Cemetery
Hietaniemi cemetery
The Hietaniemi cemetery is located in the Töölö district of Helsinki, the capital of Finland...
, now closed to further burials, the last resting place of numerous people influential in Finnish history, politics, and culture.
Pro Finlandia
A degree of patriotism translated both to his close acquaintance with Finland's long-serving President Urho KekkonenUrho Kekkonen
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen , was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland and later as the eighth President of Finland . Kekkonen continued the “active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen...
, from whom Sarpaneva received the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland
Order of the Lion of Finland
There are three official orders in Finland: the Order of the Cross of Liberty, the Order of the White Rose of Finland and the Order of the Lion of Finland . The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The orders are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor, a...
in 1958 for his success at the Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
Triennale
Triennale
La Triennale di Milano is a design museum and events venue in Milan, Italy, located inside the Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. It hosts exhibitions and events which highlight contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture,...
, and to the names of some of his internationally marketed production, Finlandia for a "bark glass" vase series and Suomi ("Finland") for a tableware design. He designed glass vases and silver dinnerware for the presidential residence Mäntyniemi
Mäntyniemi
Mäntyniemi , is one of the three official residences of the President of Finland besides the Presidential Palace and Kultaranta. Mäntyniemi was finished in 1993...
opened in 1993. The image of Finland as a trailblazer of design has long been based on its post-World War II success and on the reputation of Sarpaneva and a handful of its other "designer heroes."
Work
Sarpaneva thought the turning point in his career came for him at the age of 22 when he received the second prize in the Riihimäki Glass
Riihimaki glass
Riihimäki glass was a reputed glass company in Riihimäki, Finland, in operation from 1910, when it was founded by Mikko Adolf Kolehmainen, to 1990. Their production ranged from basic to high quality glass ornaments, which are now sought after as collectibles, especially some of their vases...
Design Contest – second only to his college professor, Arttu Brummer, who won the top award. Sarpaneva worked intermittently with metal, wood, textiles, ceramics, and porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
(china), while glass remained his main medium from his earliest awards for much of his life, both in industrial design and in display art objects
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
. Trained as a graphic designer, he spent the majority of his life in industrial design while seeing himself more as an artist than a designer. But he discounted the option with a joke when confronted with rumors that Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
had suggested Sarpaneva's fabrics were masterstrokes ready to be framed as paintings. Nevertheless, Sarpaneva's international career opened up with a comparable feat in textile design when he received a Silver Medal at the 1951 Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
Triennale
Triennale
La Triennale di Milano is a design museum and events venue in Milan, Italy, located inside the Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. It hosts exhibitions and events which highlight contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture,...
for his submission Kukko, an embroidered tea cozy styled as a rooster (hence its Finnish name) with the bird's serrated red comb as its handle, mistaken by some at the exhibition for a carnival hat.
Textiles
In the 1950s-1960s, Sarpaneva created fabric designs for a number of companies associated in PMK (Puuvillatehtaitten myyntikonttori, "Cotton Mills' Sales Office").Ambiente
His radical, painterly Ambiente series designed for a linen division of TampellaTampella
Oy Tampella Ab was a Finnish heavy industry manufacturer, a maker of paper machines, locomotives, military weaponry, as well as wood-based products such as packaging. The company was based mainly in the city of Tampere....
in the mid-1960s brought robotization to cloth pattern production. Close to 2,000 automated machine settings, which Sarpaneva called "industrial monotypes," enabled extensive variation in color schemes, from intense crimson and turquoise to subtle pea green, cream, and black. Blurring, merging, and distortion resulted in fluid psychedelic patterns and added another layer to the number of options the modified two-sided rotary printing opened for its manufacturers and marketers.
Suomi
Sarpaneva's work in industrial design received its highest recognition with his porcelainPorcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
(china) full-line dinner service Suomi ("Finland"), on which he worked four four years (some sources say three or two). Commissioned by the German company Rosenthal, which first considered the concept too simple, it was launched in its "studio-line" in 1976. The originally all-white modern classic with gently rounded corners was made part of the permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
in Paris as an example of contemporary design and has remained in production through the 2010s. Sarpaneva said his inspiration came from the forms of rocks rounded and polished by moving water. It combined the circle with the square, a merger of the organic forms of the craft tradition and the straight lines associated with modern industry. The pieces of the chip-resistant service appealed to the hand as well as the eye. Big, comfortable handles made the cups sturdy and easy to hold, rims on the plates prevented spills, tea and coffee pots poured without dripping.
Still in the 1970s, Rosenthal made Suomi the canvass for high-art surface designs limited to 500-set runs by artists renowned at the time, including Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
and Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
. The company also adjusted Suomi for customers looking to inject self-expression. It manufactured Suomi in a parallel Porcelaine noire series and allowed customers to mix and purchase the luminous white and uncommon black-porcelain pieces in any desired contrastive combination. In a separate modification, the producer catered to those seeking more opulence with gold- and platinum-trimmed Suomi series. Such marketing was not always appreciated on aesthetic grounds with the argument that the decorated versions of various sorts related poorly to Sarpaneva's refined shapes, and that Suomi was extraordinary only in plain white.
Limited series
On the occasion of launching his Sun in the Forest cup-and-saucer set in London, Sarpaneva said his forms were sometimes inspired by sound.When I go very deep into the forest, all of my senses are alerted. That is when I can hear with my eyes.Direct references to sound translated to images also accompanied the promo material with his mug-and-saucer combo Song of the Troll.
Glass
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
Triennale
Triennale
La Triennale di Milano is a design museum and events venue in Milan, Italy, located inside the Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. It hosts exhibitions and events which highlight contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture,...
in 1954 that included Sarpaneva's series Orkidea ("Orchid"), Kajakki ("Kayak"), and Lansetti ("Lancet") adopted for production by Iittala. He said of his favorite material:
Glass is very mysterious. It's changing all the time. That's what makes it magical. It released me from the conventional and the three-dimensional. It opened its deepest reaches to me and took me on a journey to a fourth dimension. I understood the opportunities that clear, transparent glass gives to an artist and designer.The amoeboid abstraction "Lancet II" of the latter series, an asymmetrical clear-glass vase whose shape is only partly echoed by its hollow center, was selected by the U.S. magazine House Beautiful as "The Most Beautuful Design Object of the Year" 1954. At his hands distinctions between pure and applied art gradually became less and less meaningful – the glass vases he created in the 1950s exhibited clear sculptural qualities long before he decided to sever his connection with the vessel as a form in 1964 and to make pure sculpture in glass.
Finlandia
The Finlandia line of "bark glass" vases produced by IittalaIittala
Iittala is a Finnish design company specialising in houseware objects made on the principle of "modern Scandinavian design". [N.B. The official logo of the Company is all in lower case - iittala. Using upper case for the initial i can cause some confusion as it may be mistaken for an L.] The Iittala...
in 1964-1970 brought about another innovation, mass-produced household objects each of which was, in a way, exclusive. The collection was distinguished by the presence of thick glass with a rough surface that brought to mind snow and ice, replacing in one blow the smooth, thin, streamlined colored glass of the 1950s. Sarpaneva recalled:
I found a heap of discarded wooden molds used for making polished glass and decided to make a different kind of glass with them. Each piece was slightly different in its shape and surface.Glass was poured or blown into the molds and allowed to remain long enough for the molds to burn, thereby roughening the surfaces. Each time the mold was blown into, the grain texture changed causing each object in the Finlandia series to be unique although mold-blown. The molds were gradually, and intentionally, destroyed through repeated contact with glass heated to 500 °C (932 F). The changing surface gave each piece a natural randomized "bark" effect created by the carbonized wood, which could not otherwise be convincingly created by an artist.
Pack Ice / Mirror of the Sea
Sarpaneva made his and Finland's largest glass sculpture, Ahtojää ("Pack IceDrift ice
Drift ice is ice that floats on the surface of the water in cold regions, as opposed to fast ice, which is attached to a shore. Usually drift ice is carried along by winds and sea currents, hence its name, "drift ice"....
," renamed from Jäävuori, "Iceberg"), for the Finnish pavilion at Expo 67
Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67, as it was commonly known, was the general exhibition, Category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with the...
in Montreal in 1967. It was then bought by the City of Tampere
Tampere
Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...
and remained in storage until 1988 when it was installed in the entrance lobby of the KoskiKeskus shopping mall opened in downtown Tampere
Tampere
Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...
in March of that year. The 12 m (36 ft.) long and 6.4 m (21 ft.) wide triangle is suspended from the ceiling and filled with 488, up to 1 m (3.3 ft.) high, faceted and noduled glass turrets. Sarpaneva expanded his original concept by attaching Meren peili ("Mirror of the Sea") below Ahtojää, mirror panes interpreting the surface of the sea (the Baltic Sea is partly covered with ice around Finland in the winter, but ice-free in the summer), in order to reminisce on fluidity and the cycle of life, which also subsumed a Finnish take on the two manifestations of the country's denotative multitude of lakes – white ice in the winter and a blue mirror in the summer. Nordic art specialists often compared Sarpaneva's ability to capture light along with its hues to looking through ice beneath the sea.
Smile
Glass was also the material of his rare work that addressed trans-Atlantic cultural influences. The small, black blown-glass piece Smile with a glossy finish features two large Disneyesque ears rising above a mouth and refers to Mickey Mouse. The ears signify Mickey's state of being, while the sculpture transforms Mickey into a set of abstract geometric relationships.Awards
- 1951 Silver Medal, for Kukko ("Rooster"), IX TriennaleTriennaleLa Triennale di Milano is a design museum and events venue in Milan, Italy, located inside the Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. It hosts exhibitions and events which highlight contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture,...
, Milan - 1954 Grand Prix, glass, X Triennale, Milan
- 1957 Grand Prix, for exhibition architecture, XI Triennale, Milan
- 1957 Grand Prix, glass, XI Triennale, Milan
- 1956 Lunning PrizeLunning PrizeThe Lunning Prize was instituted by Frederik Lunning, owner of the New York agency for Georg Jensen. The prize was awarded to eminent Scandinavian designers, two each year, from 1951 to 1970...
- 1976 Gold Medal, for Suomi, Concorso Internazionale della Ceramica d'Arte Contemporanea, Faenza
Honorifics
- 1958 Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of FinlandOrder of the Lion of FinlandThere are three official orders in Finland: the Order of the Cross of Liberty, the Order of the White Rose of Finland and the Order of the Lion of Finland . The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The orders are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor, a...
- 1963 Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, Royal Society of Arts, London
- 1967 Honorary Doctor, Royal College of Art, London
- 1985 Academico de Honor Extranjero ("Professor Honoris Causa"), Academia de Diseño, Instituto de Cultura de la Ciudad de México
- 1993 Honorary Doctor, School of Art and Design, Aalto University, Helsinki
Market
Sarpaneva's artistically conceived design lines gained in resale value to the degree that forgeries became profitable. The Finnish police estimated the total value of the forgeries of his and some of his peers' designs reached millions of euros and expected it to grow. Occasional, partly tongue-in-cheek, criticism of some of the designs – that the versatile teak handle with the cast-iron pot would get lost, that white Suomi showed tea stains unlike classic British brown tea pots – did not undermine their appreciation. Historically, Christie'sChristie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
executives commented on growth in resale value especially with Sarpaneva's glass creations for the Italian Venini company. Older objects from the same series would be more valuable, for instance, an item from the first year of the Kajakki (Kayak) series, which ran from 1953 to 1959, might fetch 50% more than the same object from the last year of production. Bargain hunters occasionally reported high returns, including the purchase of a Sarpaneva glass plate for 25 cents in a garage sale, which turned out to have a resale value of US$1,000.