DesignerSwedish
Ingeborg Lundin
3 active items
A single sphere of hand-blown glass, swelling outward with the inevitability of a breath, caused a sensation at the H55 exhibition in Helsingborg in 1955. Ingeborg Lundin's "Applet" (The Apple) was both technically audacious and formally perfect: a massive clear glass orb that required extraordinary skill from the glass blowers at Orrefors, where the young designer had arrived eight years earlier as the first woman to hold a significant design position at the glassworks.
Born Berta Ingeborg Viola Lundin in Vaxjo in 1921, her early years were marked by loss. Her father emigrated to Chicago when she was an infant; her mother died before she started school. Raised by a maternal aunt in Vretstorp, she found her way to Konstfack in Stockholm, where she studied from 1941 to 1946 while working evenings as a drawing instructor and designing medals for Sporrong AB. When she joined Orrefors in 1947 at the age of 26, she entered a male-dominated world of master blowers and established designers. The scepticism she initially encountered dissolved as her talent became undeniable.
Lundin's greatest contribution to Swedish glass was her mastery of the Ariel technique, a method of trapping air bubbles within layers of glass to create patterns. Where Edvin Ohrstrom had pioneered Ariel with organic, flowing forms, Lundin took it in a geometric, architectonic direction. Her "Ansikten" (Faces) series used bubble inclusions to form profile faces within the clear glass, achieving an effect that was simultaneously graphic and three-dimensional. These Ariel pieces, each a unique work, remain among the most sought-after examples of mid-century Swedish glass.
Beyond art glass, Lundin designed functional tableware with the same sense of purity. Her "Bob" series for the H55 exhibition demonstrated that beauty and utility could coexist at every price point, a principle central to the Scandinavian modern movement. Commercial drinking glass lines including Carina and Silvia brought her aesthetic into everyday Swedish homes. She also designed glass for Sandviks glassworks in Hovmantorp, an Orrefors subsidiary.
The Lunning Prize in 1954 and a Gold Medal at the XI Milan Triennale in 1957 confirmed her international standing. She worked at Orrefors for 24 years until departing around 1971, and briefly returned to design at Maleras glassworks in the early 1990s before a serious car accident and illness. She died in 1992.
Glass by Ingeborg Lundin dominates her auction presence on Auctionist, with 133 of 152 indexed items classified as glass. Formstad Auktioner, Metropol, and houses across Sweden handle her work regularly. Orrefors bowls from the 1960s reach SEK 15,000-16,500, while her Ariel "Ansikte" vases command similar prices. The "Applet" itself, when it appears, draws strong interest. For collectors of Scandinavian glass, Lundin represents the moment when a woman's vision reshaped an entire tradition.