Gunnar Nylund

Nylund's professional career began at the Bing & Grondahl porcelain factory in Copenhagen from 1925 to 1928, where the painter Jean Gauguin, son of Paul Gauguin, served as his mentor. In 1928, together with chemist Nathalie Krebs, he established a ceramics workshop that became the Saxbo studio in 1930. Their collaboration produced robust stoneware with naturalistic glazes, but Nylund departed in 1932 after creative disagreements. By 1931, he had already begun working for the Swedish porcelain manufacturer Rorstrand, where he would remain until 1955, serving for the majority of that time as artistic director. At Rorstrand, Nylund developed the matte feldspar glazed stoneware that became his signature, including the celebrated hare's fur and crystal glazes that produced subtle tonal gradations across vessel surfaces. He also created a body of stoneware animal sculptures, including antelopes, baboons, and other zoological subjects, which brought a sculptural dimension to the factory's output.

Beyond tableware and vessels, Nylund completed roughly thirty reliefs and monumental sculptures for public spaces over the course of his career. Among these are Theater Cavalcade at Malmo Stadsteater, The Jungle Awakens at the entrance to the agricultural university library in Uppsala, and Three Vastogoter, a relief for the Vastgota nation in Uppsala. In 1955, he left Rorstrand to become artistic director of Strombergshyttan glassworks in Hovmantorp, Smaland, where he applied his sense of form and colour to blown glass vessels. In the early 1960s, he returned to Denmark and began producing stoneware for Nymolle Keramiska Fabrik in Lyngby. His works are held in museum collections across Scandinavia and Europe, including the National Museum in Stockholm, the Rohsska Museum in Gothenburg, the Sevres Museum in Paris, and the Malmo Museum.

With over 900 lots appearing on Auctionist, Gunnar Nylund is one of the most actively traded Scandinavian ceramicists on the Nordic auction market. Stoneware vessels and bowls in hare's fur and crystal glazes from the Rorstrand period are the most sought-after pieces, followed by his animal sculptures. Works appear regularly at Bukowskis, Stockholms Auktionsverk, and across the Auctionet network. Strombergshyttan glass pieces are less common but attract collectors of mid-century Swedish design.