DesignerSwedish
Kerstin Hörlin-Holmquist
4 active items
Kerstin Horlin-Holmquist named her most famous furniture collection Paradiset, Paradise, and the name was not mere marketing. The Eva lounge chairs, Adam armchairs, and Lustgarden (Garden of Pleasure) sofas that she designed for Nordiska Kompaniet in the late 1950s proposed a vision of domestic comfort built on soft, organic curves at a time when much Scandinavian furniture remained angular and austere. Her work insisted that sitting down should feel like an embrace.
Born in Arvika on May 30, 1925, the daughter of the painter Tor Horlin, she studied art history in postwar England (1945-47), where she developed a lasting fascination with the English tradition of upholstered furniture. She then enrolled at Konstfack in Stockholm, graduating in 1952. That same year, her hand-woven wicker "Kraal" chairs, exhibited at the "52 Mobler 52" show at Gothenburg's Rohsska Museum, caught the eye of architect Elias Svedberg, who introduced her to Nordiska Kompaniet.
At NK, Horlin-Holmquist became lead designer of the Triva collection, producing furniture intended to make people feel good. The Paradiset series (1956-58) was her masterpiece. The Eva chairs, available in "Stora Eva" (large) and "Lilla Eva" (small) variants, used innovative expanded polystyrene frames covered with wooden structures and upholstery to achieve their characteristic rounded forms. The collection's Adam chair served as the masculine counterpart, while the Lustgarden canape extended the organic language into seating for two or three.
After leaving NK in the mid-1960s, she designed the Skrindan series for OPE Mobler in Jonkoping, armchairs and sofas distinguished by symmetrically arranged spindles on back and sides. She later created the Charlotte dining set for Finnish manufacturer Asko and the Eden garden furniture collection in beech and brass. Interior design commissions included the Brukshotellet in Bofors and the Hubert Humphrey Institute in Minneapolis.
Horlin-Holmquist tested every design in her own home before approving it for production, a practice that reflected her conviction that furniture should possess, as she put it, "human qualities, not be pompous and only stand alone, but be able to adapt to the environment." Her work is held by Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.
She died in Angelholm on February 3, 1997, at the age of 71.
On Auctionist, 138 Horlin-Holmquist items are indexed, with chairs and armchairs accounting for 98 pieces. Bukowskis Stockholm (18 items) and Stockholms Auktionsverk (12) handle the largest volumes. The Lustgarden canape from the Paradiset series holds the top result at SEK 30,000, while pairs of Skrindan armchairs reach SEK 12,000-16,000 and Eva chairs trade around SEK 11,000-12,000. Her furniture combines sculptural beauty with genuine comfort, qualities that continue to attract collectors of Scandinavian mid-century design.