Uno Åhrén
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a black lacquered table with a pewter top by Nils Fougstedt, Svenskt Tenn ca 1930. Alva & Gunnar Myrdal Collection.
Model 743, the pewter top with engraved decoration, motifs from the garden of Eden, black lacquered wooden base. 69 x 69 cm, height 32 cm.
Wear. The pewter with small repairs.
Provenance
Alva & Gunnar Myrdal. Thence by descent.
Literature
Firma Svenskt Tenn, catalogue 1931, this model is depicted.
Hedvig Hedqvist, Rikard Jacobson, Jan von Gerber, 'Modernt Svenskt Tenn', Stockholm 2004, see this model depicted on p 60: 'Uno Åhrén was the one to design the first tables for Svenskt Tenn. They were stained black as was very much in fashion in the 1920s. Different artists were hired to decorate the engraved pewter tops'. This actual table was decorated by Estrid Ericson's business partner at Svenskt Tenn, Nils Fougstedt, with the motif 'Garden of Eden'.
Model nr 743 by Uno Åhrén is recorded in the Svenskt Tenn archives as designed in 1928 with two optional engraved tops designed by Tyra Lundgren. This table might be a custom made design with the decoration by Fougstedt instead.
More information
Family anecdote:
"The pewter top table was always placed at a central spot in our different living rooms. When we were little we used to copy the delicate engraved patterns on the top. A worse incident was when the next generation broke off some pieces of pewter from the edge in order to make tin soldiers".
Designer
Uno Åhrén was a Swedish architect who graduated from Tekniska Högskolan i Stockholm (the Royal Institute of Technology) in 1919. Uno Åhrén made his debut with a residential interior at the "Home Exhibition" at Liljevalchs in 1917. He was one of the earliest collaborators with Estrid Ericson at the Svenskt Tenn. Åhrén participated in the Paris World Fair in 1925 with a ladies' salon.
Åhrén, who would become one of the main advocates of functionalism, he only worked as a furniture designer at the beginning of his career. The late 1920s in Sweden were marked by Åhrén's radical thoughts and ideas; he was one of the most eager proponents of functionalism, including as a co-author of the publication "acceptera".
Åhrén's focus was primarily on the social perspective in housing issues. From the late 1910s onwards, Uno Åhrén participated in a number of industrial art exhibitions: in addition to the mentioned Home Exhibition in 1917, the Gothenburg Exhibition in 1923, the Paris World Fair in 1925, the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930, and the World Fair in Chicago in 1933. After 1930, Åhrén devoted himself mainly to urban architecture and city planning, including as a city planning architect in Gothenburg from 1932-43 and as the head of Svenska Riksbyggen during the 1940s. He is most renowned for his strong pathos as a driving debater in the social housing issue. For Svenskt Tenn, he designed both furniture and pewter objects of a more luxurious nature.