ArtistSwedish
Anders Pehrsson
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Anders Pehrsson was born in 1912 in Goteborg and trained as an engineer. From 1952 onward he worked in the lighting industry at Philips AB, where he developed an understanding of large-scale production alongside an eye for form. In 1964 he left Philips to take over Atelje Lyktan, a small lighting manufacturer based in Ahus on the southern Swedish coast, and the move would define the rest of his career.
At Atelje Lyktan, Pehrsson pursued a design direction that combined geometric clarity with functional pragmatism. His approach was not purely aesthetic: he understood production economics and consistently worked toward designs that could be manufactured at scale without compromising quality. The result was a portfolio of lamps - Simris (1964), Rampling (1966), Supertube (1967), Bumling (1968), Fungus (1969), Knubbling (1971), and Tube (1973), among others - that gave Atelje Lyktan a coherent visual identity and strong commercial footing.
The Bumling, launched at the Gothenburg lighting fair in 1968, became the defining piece of the collection. Its spherical form, available in multiple materials, colours, and sizes for ceiling, wall, floor, and table mounting, made it adaptable to almost any domestic interior. The name is Swedish for 'boulder'. Within a few years it was widely distributed across Europe and remains in production today. The Simris series brought Pehrsson an equally significant commission: in 1972 Atelje Lyktan supplied 16,300 Simris lamps for the Olympic Village in Munich - the largest single order in the company's history at that point.
In 1974 Pehrsson sold Atelje Lyktan to the Fagerhult group but continued as CEO and creative director through the late 1970s. He died in 1982. The designs he created for Atelje Lyktan are now standard references in surveys of Swedish mid-century and late-modern industrial design, and the Bumling in particular has acquired a strong following among collectors of Scandinavian postwar design.
In Nordic auction rooms, Pehrsson's work appears almost exclusively as lighting objects rather than as signed art. The Bumling dominates, showing up at houses including Halmstads Auktionskammare, Crafoord Auktioner, Auktionshuset Kolonn, and Norrlands Auktionsverk. Recorded prices on Auctionist range from 200 SEK for smaller lots to 600 EUR for well-preserved ceiling models, with pairs typically commanding the highest results - a pair of Bumling pendants reached 2,200 SEK. The 'Ofir Octav' and 'Simris' models also appear occasionally. Demand is steady and driven by collectors of Scandinavian design rather than the fine art market.