ArtistSwedish
Lena Larsson
1 active items
Lena Larsson, born Lena Rabenius in Tranås in 1919, came from a Swedish noble family but spent her career working in the practical, democratic tradition of postwar Scandinavian design. She trained as a cabinetmaker at Carl Malmsten's school of craftsmanship, an education that gave her a maker's understanding of materials and construction rather than purely a theorist's eye. This foundation shaped everything that followed.
In the early 1940s, before her design career had fully taken shape, she was commissioned by Svenska Slöjdföreningen and Svenska Arkitekters Riksförbund to survey how Swedish housewives actually lived in and used their homes. The research, conducted through direct interviews, was intended to guide postwar housing construction toward more functional, livable spaces. It was an unusual assignment for a young designer, and it gave Larsson both a methodological seriousness about domestic life and a platform that extended well beyond the drafting table.
The project that defined her public profile was NK-bo, the experimental design unit she helped establish within Nordiska Kompaniet in 1947, working alongside furniture designer Elias Svedberg. NK-bo operated as a kind of living laboratory for affordable, family-oriented interiors, running courses on home decoration and championing the idea that good design should be accessible and hard-wearing rather than reserved for formal rooms. She led the unit until 1956. A second iteration, NK-bo NU, ran from 1961 to 1965.
As a furniture designer, Larsson produced work that has held up well in the vintage market. The Allmoge chair (1952), a stick-back design produced by Nässjö Stolfabrik, drew on traditional Swedish craft forms while keeping the lines clean and the construction unpretentious. The Grandessa armchair (1958), also made by Nässjö, became her best-known piece - a rocking chair with a broad, comfortable seat that suited the wear-and-tear ethos she actively promoted. Both chairs entered the collections of the Möbeldesignmuseum. She also coined the term "allrum" (the multi-purpose living room) and popularised the concept of "slit och släng" - use it hard and replace it - as a counterweight to reverence for fragile heirlooms.
Beyond furniture, Larsson wrote columns for Expressen and Stockholmstidningen, and published roughly twenty books on interior decoration, cooking, nature, and memoir. From 1956 to 1960 she edited Allt i hemmet, one of Sweden's main home decoration magazines. She died in 2000.
On Auctionist, all 19 items attributed to Lena Larsson fall under chairs and armchairs, reflecting her identity in the secondary market as primarily a furniture designer. The Grandessa and Allmoge appear most frequently, with the Grandessa fetching up to 1,000 SEK at recent sales through houses including Crafoord Auktioner Malmö, Helsingborgs Auktionskammare, and Formstad Auktioner. The Bohem rocking chair also appears in the listings. Prices remain modest, as is typical for functional vintage Scandinavian furniture, but the pieces circulate steadily.