KunstenaarSwedish
Ulrica Hydman-Vallien
52 actieve items
Ulrica Margareta Hydman Vallien (24 March 1938, Stockholm, 21 March 2018, Sweden) was a Swedish artist whose painted glass became among the most widely recognized Scandinavian applied art of the late twentieth century. She studied at Konstfack (the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm from 1958 to 1962, in the Department of Ceramics and Glass, where Stig Lindberg was one of her teachers. It was there she met her future husband, the glass artist Bertil Vallien, who was in the same year. After completing her studies, she worked with ceramics and textile before arriving at Kosta Boda glassworks in 1972, where she would remain for the rest of her career.
Hydman-Vallien's debut at Kosta Boda was immediate and provocative. Working in a predominantly male glass environment, she brought a painterly, figurative, and emotionally direct style to a medium that had been defined by clean Scandinavian formalism. She hand-painted directly onto blown glass surfaces with bold brushstrokes, populating her vessels with recurring motifs of snakes, tulips, wolves, human faces, and hearts. In 1986, she launched two collections that would define her commercial legacy: Open Minds, featuring vessels with faces whose tops open into expressive silhouettes, and Caramba, with its vivid figural compositions. Both became immediate bestsellers. In 1991, the Tulipa collection followed, drawing on her signature tulip motif. Tulipa became the most-sold glass collection in the world.
Her visual language extended beyond the glassworks. Hydman-Vallien was one of fifty artists selected by British Airways in the 1990s to create designs for the airline's aircraft tails, napkins, porcelain, tickets, and stationery. Her imagery also appeared on Ericsson mobile phones and in numerous graphic design commissions. Open Minds vessels appeared as props in the television series Sex and the City and Friends, bringing Kosta Boda's glass art to an international audience.
Hydman-Vallien exhibited widely throughout her career and her work is held in museum collections across Sweden and internationally. In 2019, Liljevalchs konsthall in Stockholm presented the posthumous retrospective Ulrica Hydman Vallien, En paradisattack, surveying four decades of production. The Ulrica Hydman Vallien Foundation was established after her death to support young artists.
With over 900 lots on Auctionist, Hydman-Vallien is one of the most traded glass artists in the Nordic auction market. Open Minds pieces, particularly large unique vases and bowls, command the highest prices, followed by signed unique works and early Caramba pieces. Her work appears consistently at Bukowskis, Stockholms Auktionsverk, and across the Auctionet network. Production-series pieces remain accessible, while unique hand-painted works attract dedicated collectors.