Carl Johan Boman, sideboard, 1930s
Carl Johan Boman (1883-1969) was one of Finland’s earliest noted interior designers. His furniture designs won prizes at several international exhibitions of industrial art. The kitchen cabinet now offered for sale represents the latest fashion of its day, with a radically innovative functionalism that became the style for a new product range under the direction of C-J Boman at the Boman furniture factory, as historicist conservative furniture gave way to new, clean-cut furnishings combining form and function.
N. Bomans Ångsnickeri and Oy Boman Ab
C-J Boman studied interior and furniture design at the institute of industrial arts attached to the Royal Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin (Königliche Kunstgewerbemuseum), where his notable teachers included the Swedish Alfred Grenander. After graduating as an interior designer in 1906, he was appointed Director of the drawing office at N. Bomans Ångsnickeri and Artistic Director of the factory, which at that time was the largest furniture factory in Finland and also the country’s leading manufacturer of high quality furnishings. The factory was established by C-J Boman’s father Nikolai Boman in 1871 and renamed Oy Boman Ab in 1937. C-J directed the drawing office until his appointment as Managing Director of the factory in 1919. He continued to serve in this capacity until 1955 when the factory was sold to Wärtsilä. Oy Boman Ab finally closed down in 1967.
Boman furnishings around the world
Boman furnishings have featured in world exhibitions, winning gold medals at Paris 1894, 1889 and 1937, St Petersburg 1908, Monza 1925 and Barcelona 1929. They were also exhibited at the Milan Triennale in 1951 and 1954, and in a Design in Scandinavia exhibition tour in 1954-1957. The company was awarded a royal warrant of appointment to the court of Sweden in 1925.
Oy Boman Ab arranged an exhibition at Turku Art Museum in September 1938 including a cabinet of the kind now offered for sale, which was described in the Finnish women’s weekly magazine Hopeapeili. The exhibition also featured works by Gunnel Nyman, Lisa Johansson and Dora Jung, light fittings by Taito Oy, and inlaid works made for a new ship of the Finland South America Line. A photograph of the cabinet from the exhibition appears in the historical work Moderni Turku 1920- ja 1930-luvuilla, and the piece is also referenced in the text of the antiques publication Suomen Antiikkiesineet. An entry on a photograph from the archives of Carl Johan Boman indicates that the cabinet was designed in 1937.
The kitchen cabinet now offered for sale was originally purchased by the economist Lars Lindblom, who worked for the Finland South America Line and later became its Managing Director. Oy Boman Ab also provided saloon interiors for two other ships commissioned by the company, the MS Aurora (1938) and the MS Atlanta (1939).
