KunstenaarFinnish
Taisto Kaasinen
1 actieve items
There is something immediately recognizable about a Taisto Kaasinen animal - a quality of compressed energy, as if the creature is about to shift its weight. Born in Savonlinna, Finland, in 1918, Kaasinen began his formal ceramic training at the Arabia factory in Helsinki, where he studied from 1946 to 1952. Arabia was then at the centre of a Scandinavian design culture that believed everyday objects could carry artistic weight, and Kaasinen absorbed that conviction fully.
In 1952 he moved to Sweden, taking a position as a ceramic artist at Upsala-Ekeby, the Uppsala-based manufacturer that had built its reputation on art pottery and figurative work. During his years at Upsala-Ekeby he developed the animal series that would define his legacy: chamotte-bodied figures of walruses, bulls, horses, alligators, lynxes, zebras, and fish, executed with thick colour glazings and strong gestures. The forms read as simultaneously monumental and good-natured - they have weight without being solemn.
He returned to Arabia in 1961, this time with his own studio in the art department. The move allowed him a different scale of ambition. He designed and executed tens of monumental works for public spaces in both Finland and Sweden, including the ceramic relief on the outer wall of the Hermanni parish house in Helsinki. He also created reliefs for ferries operating on the Finland-Sweden routes and for Finnish icebreakers. His 1967 relief "Ihmisiä" (People), now in the Helsinki Art Museum collection, depicts five figures holding hands across a wall, using thick earthenware glazes and mosaic technique to carry the image at architectural scale.
Kaasinen's public commissions and industrial design ran in parallel through the 1960s and 1970s, a dual practice common among mid-century Nordic ceramists who moved fluidly between gallery work, applied design, and civic commissions. He died in Vantaa in 1980.
At Auctionist, 21 works by Kaasinen have appeared across Nordic auction houses, with the ceramics category covering the large majority of lots. Göteborgs Auktionsverk, Formstad Auktioner, and Hagelstam & Co in Helsinki are among the houses that have handled his work, reflecting his dual Finnish-Swedish career. The top sale in our records is an Upsala-Ekeby alligator figure at 6,055 SEK, followed by an Arabia stoneware wall plaque at 4,890 SEK and a fish sculpture at 3,400 SEK.