EDVIN OLLERS: ART AND INDUSTRY IN SWEDISH DESIGN
A glass vessel inspired by historical European forms, a sculptural pewter bowl, a modernist perfume bottle. Across glass, ceramics, metalwork and graphic design, Edvin Ollers (1888–1959) developed a body of work that moved between artistic traditions and the emerging possibilities of industrial production.
An Artist in Industry
Born Edvin Olsson in Norrtälje, Sweden, in 1888, Ollers was the son of a bookbinder. He studied at Högre konstindustriella skolan in Stockholm from 1906 to 1909 and continued his training at Göteborgs musei rit- och målarskola in 1909–10.
Although he remained active as a painter and teacher throughout his life, his engagement with Swedish manufacturers came to define much of his professional career. He entered the field at a time when the relationship between artists and industry was being actively reconsidered.
At the centre of this discussion was a question both practical and aesthetic: could well-designed objects be made for ordinary homes, at prices ordinary people could afford? For Ollers and his contemporaries, the answer required a reconsideration of how objects were designed, manufactured and valued.
Glass for a Modern Everyday Life
Ollers’s first important encounter with the glass industry came in connection with the 1917 Home Exhibition at Liljevalchs in Stockholm. The Swedish Society of Crafts and Design had encouraged artists to work directly with manufacturers as part of its campaign for vackrare vardagsvara — more beautiful everyday goods.
At Kosta, Ollers developed a collection of tableware inspired by historical European glass. Bowls, goblets and drinking vessels appeared in soft greens and blues, with bubbled, irregular surfaces that contrasted with the clarity and polish of fine crystal. Some of this rustic character disappeared when the designs entered wider production and Kosta adopted a purer glass mixture, illustrating how manufacturing could alter an object’s original expression.
His work extended beyond these early pieces to include footed vessels, flared bowls and decorative glass. Together, they reveal an interest in the expressive possibilities of the material, particularly the interplay of colour, transparency and form.
Across the Swedish Glassworks
Kosta was the beginning rather than the definition of Ollers’s work in glass. After his first period there in 1917–18, he worked with several Swedish glassworks, including Reijmyre, Elme and Limmared, before returning to Kosta in the early 1930s. Later collaborations included Alsterfors, Åfors, Ekenäs and Flygsfors.
Each factory offered different technical possibilities, from blown and moulded glass to cutting and engraving. Moving between these environments, Ollers adapted his designs to the capabilities of individual manufacturers while exploring increasingly varied approaches to form and decoration.
A striking amphora vase associated with Ollers’s work for Engshyttan at Nybro illustrates this development. Its almost spherical body, narrow neck and paired loop handles create a strongly symmetrical silhouette, while rows of applied glass along the sides introduce a decorative, almost architectural rhythm. The black glass and controlled geometry place it within the stylised vocabulary of the interwar years, in marked contrast to the informal character of his early Kosta tableware.
From Glass to Pewter
Glass formed only one part of Ollers’s work. He was artistic adviser at Upsala-Ekeby in 1917–18 and later held similar roles at S:t Eriks Lervarufabriker, in 1921 and again in 1926–28. His activities also encompassed silver, nickel silver, book design and other applied arts.
Metal became a particularly sustained part of his career through his association with the Stockholm firm Schreuder & Olsson. Beginning in 1924, Ollers designed pewter for the company until 1950, making it one of the longest collaborations of his professional life.
Bowls, vases, candlesticks and other domestic objects formed a substantial part of his work for the company. Many rely on remarkably little decoration. A shallow pewter bowl, raised on a compact circular foot, derives its presence almost entirely from proportion: the broad curve of the body set against the concentrated weight of the base.
Other pieces reveal a more ornamental sensibility, with rounded bodies, pronounced contours and decorative details recalling Baroque metalwork. This interest in historical forms extended beyond his work in pewter and remained a recurring feature of his designs across different materials.
Teaching a New Generation
Teaching was another constant in Ollers’s career. For decades, he taught at Stockholm’s Tekniska skolan and its successor institutions, becoming a senior teacher in the 1930s and later teaching at Konstfackskolan in the late 1940s.
Among those who attended his lectures was Karin Björquist, who would become one of the defining figures of postwar Swedish ceramics. She recalled the breadth of his interests, from Japanese woodblock prints to African art, and particularly his insistence on drawing as a means of learning to see.
For Ollers, drawing was more than a technical skill. It was a way of understanding relationships between form, proportion and expression. His engagement with artistic traditions beyond Europe also reflected an intellectual curiosity that extended well beyond the conventions of Swedish applied art.
Between Tradition and Modernism
Ollers’s career unfolded during a period of considerable change in Swedish design. During the 1920s, Swedish design became internationally associated with the refined classicism now known as Swedish Grace. By the end of the decade, functionalism had introduced a more radical conception of modern design, finding its most prominent expression in Sweden at the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930.
Yet Ollers cannot be placed neatly within either movement. His designs responded to changing ideas about form, materials and industrial production without adhering to a consistent stylistic vocabulary. The rustic glass of his early years at Kosta, the ornamental vessels of the interwar period and the restrained pewter of his later career reveal an approach shaped as much by individual commissions as by broader aesthetic developments.
His perfume bottles for Limmared offer a particularly revealing example. Drawing on traditional Chinese vessel forms, Ollers simplified their silhouettes and adapted them to industrial glass production. The resulting objects were neither historical reproductions nor entirely modernist inventions, but designs in which familiar forms acquired a new expression.
For Ollers, history was less a style to be preserved than a repertoire of forms to be reinterpreted.
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Sources & Further Reading
Herlitz-Gezelius, Ann Marie. “Edvin Ollers.” Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, vol. 28. Stockholm: Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, 1992–1994.
Nationalmuseum. Edvin Ollers som konsthantverkare. Exhibition catalogue no. 256. Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1960.
Herlitz-Gezelius, Ann Marie. Vackra ting och bruksting från 10- och 20-tal. Stockholm, 1974.
Herlitz-Gezelius, Ann Marie. Kosta, glaset och konstnärerna. Stockholm, 1987.
Ricke, Helmut, and Ulrich Gronert. Glas in Schweden 1915–1960. Munich: Prestel, 1986.
Wettergren, Erik. “Kostaglaset 1917–1942.” In Kosta glasbruk 1742–1942. Kosta, 1942.
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Collection records for works by Edvin Ollers, including glass from Kosta and pewter produced by Schreuder & Olsson.
Kulturparken Småland / Smålands museum. Collection records for glass designed by Edvin Ollers.
Ericsson, Anne-Marie. Svenskt 1920-tal: Konsthantverk och konstindustri. Stockholm, 1984.
Widman, Dag. “Konsthantverk, konstindustri, design 1895–1975.” In Konsten i Sverige. Stockholm, 1975.
Nisbeth, Åke, and Tage Fogelberg. Reijmyre glasbruk. Stockholm, 1960.
Dahlbäck Lutteman, Helena. Svensk 1900-talskeramik. Stockholm, 1985.
Wollin, Nils G. Från ritskola till konstfackskola: Konstindustriell undervisning under ett sekel. Stockholm, 1951.
Limmared: Bygden, bruket, samhället 1740–1990. Limmared, 1990.