OntwerperSwedish
Mats Theselius
2 actieve items
Mats Theselius studied interior architecture at Konstfack in Stockholm, graduating in 1984. His trajectory from student to one of Sweden's most distinctive furniture designers was rapid - within a few years of completing his studies he had produced work that would enter museum collections and set a template for his subsequent career.
His long collaboration with the Swedish manufacturer Källemo defined much of his output from the mid-1980s onward. The Älgskinnsfåtölj (Elk-Skin Armchair), designed in 1985 and produced in a limited edition of 360, combined sheet iron and moose leather in a way that was simultaneously industrial and organic. It was the beginning of a sustained investigation into what a chair could be when materials are chosen for their character rather than economy. The Aluminium Chair, introduced in 1990, brought that same spirit to lightweight extruded metal - a form that felt both futurist and functional.
Theselius does not limit himself to seating. The National Geographic bookcase, debuted in 1988 and painted in the magazine's signature yellow, is a piece of furniture that works as a cultural reference. The Rex chair (1995), produced in an edition of 200, pushed further into the territory between design object and sculpture. When he received the Bruno Mathsson Award in 1997, he responded by designing the Bruno armchair - a piece named in explicit tribute.
Beyond furniture, Theselius has worked across lighting, installations, set design, and exhibition design. He served as professor at HDK - Academy of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg in the mid-1990s, and was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011. His awards include the Red Dot Design Award, the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, the Wallpaper Design Award, and the Prince Eugen Medal (2018), the last of which is awarded by the King of Sweden for contributions to the arts.
His work sits in the permanent collections of the National Museum in Stockholm, the State Russian Museum in Moscow, the Danish Museum of Art and Design in Copenhagen, and the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm - a spread that reflects how his output has been received as design history rather than simply decoration.
On the Nordic auction market, Theselius chairs circulate primarily through Stockholm's major houses - Bukowskis, Stockholms Auktionsverk, and Metropol. The database shows 42 items sold across these and other venues, with zero currently active. Top results include a Theselius Rex fetching 80,000 SEK, while Aluminium Chair examples have sold in the 24,000-30,000 SEK range. The most significant result on record is a pair of Lodger armchairs co-designed with Andreas Roth, which reached 34,670 EUR.