Alvar Aalto - Design New York Thursday, June 9, 2016 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, New York, "20-19th Century Design Art," December 11, 2002, lot 50
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Literature

    Alvar and Aino Aalto as Glass Designers, exh. cat., Iittala Glass Museum, Sävypaino, 1988, cat. no. 46
    Jennifer Hawkins Opie, Scandinavia: Ceramics & Glass in the Twentieth Century, London, 1989, p. 23, fig. 189
    Eva B. Ottillinger, Alvar Aalto, bel: Die Sammlung Kossdorff, Vienna, 2002, p. 74, fig. 76
    Pirkko Tuukkanen, ed., Alvar Aalto Designer, Vammala, 2002, pp. 148, 200
    Thomas Kellein, ed., alvar & aino aalto. design, collection bischofberger, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Zurich, 2005, pp. 211-14

  • Artist Biography

    Alvar Aalto

    Finnish • 1898 - 1976

    In contrast with the functionalism of the International Style (as well the neoclassicism put forward by the Nazi and Soviet regimes), Alvar Aalto brought a refreshing breath of humanism to modern design: "True architecture exists only where man stands in the center," he wrote. Aalto designed furniture in stack-laminated plywood composed of Finnish birch, which was cost-effective and lent warmth to his interiors. Aalto also revived Finnish glass design with his entries in the various Karhula-Iitala glassworks competitions throughout the 1930s.

    In 1936 he won first place for a collection of colorful, wavy vases in various sizes titled Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa (The Eskimo Woman’s Leather Breeches). The vases were an immediate success and the most popular size, now known as the "Savoy" vase, is still in production today. Aalto's freeform designs, in harmony with human needs and nature, anticipated the organic modernism of the 1950s and 1960s; in particular, his innovations in bent plywood had a major impact on designers such as Charles and Ray Eames.

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Property from a Private Collection

46

Vase, model no. 9750, from the "Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa" sketch series

designed 1936
Mold-blown "Rio Brown" glass.
5 1/2 in. (14 cm) high
Produced at the Karhula Glassworks by Karhula-Iittala, Finland.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $6,250

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Design

New York Auction 9 June 2016