Modern Art + Design 636

Hans Bergström The Master of Light – a historical collection of lighting from ateljé Lyktan

When the young artist Hans Bergström decided in the 1930s to focus his artistic practice on creating modern lighting in Sweden, his decision would revolutionise Swedish lamp manufacturing and the attitude towards electric lighting for the decades that followed. Hans Bergström’s trajectory stretches from 1930s Functionalism to the ‘Swedish Modern’ of the 1940s. When plastics were introduced in the 1950s he was one of the first to implement the new material in modern lighting.

At the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 and despite being only 20 years old and not yet having graduated from the industrial design program at the Technical School (what is now Konstfack) in Stockholm, he confidently introduced himself to the metalware manufacturer Ystad-Metall as a designer. Two years later Bergström designed a chandelier for the Iggesund Church as his final project and in doing so staked out his path as the first Swedish architectural lighting designer. Bergström and his wife Verna started the studio Ateljé Lyktan in Helsingborg in 1934. A Functionalist ceramic lamp, made especially for the café Kafferepet, went on to be enormously popular in the city and became a minor commercial success. Just such a lamp is included in the present collection.

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