Kux Antiques & Glass

antiques@kuxantiques.com

239-262-3514

TIMO SARPANEVA

'People don't really need holidays, after all; they can carry their holidays
with them, and rest when they wish,' says Professor Timo Sarpaneva
(born 1926), industrial designer, artist, and untiringly prolific star of
international design.

Sarpaneva belongs to the generation of designers who, in the post-war
decades, acted as Finland's cultural ambassadors to the world, beginning
with the Milan Triennales in the 1950s, in which Sarpaneva won numerous
Grands Prix. The secret of Sarpaneva's great success, which he also
enjoys at home in Finland, is that he, better than any other, is able to
transform everyday objects into art, to give hope amid the gloom of life,
because the companion of beauty is hope. Sarpaneva appears to life and
work at the point where time, space and material meet, and he makes that
point visible through his objects. He is the poetic interpreter of the material
world. As a designer and artist he is unusually versatile, working as happily
with ceramics, metal, textile and wood as with glass. Glass is,
nevertheless, perhaps the material that is closest to him; 'because glass is
the material of space, it is best suited as a material to be given to light', as
he says himself. And it is in capturing light that Sarpaneva is at his best: he
has the ability to show us light as if seen from beneath the ice that covers
the sea, or in the living foliage of the forest.

Studies
1948 Institute of Industrial Arts, Helsinki

Employment
Iittala Glassworks, Euran Paperi Oy, A. Ahlstršm Oy;
Papermill of Oy Rosenlew Ab; Pori Factory; Textiles,
Oy Tampella Ab; Textiles, Oy Finlayson Ab; Textiles,
K. Ahlstršm Oy OPA; Juhava Oy; Primo Oy; Porin
konepaja, Villayhtymä; Tampereen verkatehdas;
Hyvinkään verkatehdas; Kestilä Marketing Oy;
Kinnasand Textile Works, Sweden, Rosenthal AG,
Denmark; Institute of Industrial Arts; Porin Puuvilla
Oy.

Prizes and awards
3 Grands Prix at the Milan Triennials between 1951
and 1957
Lunning Prize 1956
Pro Finlandia Medal 1958
Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, Royal Society
of Art, London 113
International Design Award, USA 1963
International Design Award, USA 1963
Honorary doctorate, Royal College of Art, London
1967
International Design Award, USA 1969
Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland 1975
Title of professor 1976
Gold medal awarded by the President of Italy 1976
Finnish State Award for Crafts and Design 1985
Finland Award 1993

Main Activities
Product design for the glass,
ceramics, paper, textile and metal industries, unique
works and teaching.