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Here you will find a little information on a few glass factories.
Founded in 1876 by the Fagerlund family C.F, Oscar, Alfred and Carl Carlsson. In 1916 was taken over by Oscar Johansson and in 1917 changed the name to Afors, the factory ran until 1976 when sold to Kosta.
Notable designers: Astrid Rietz, Bertil Vallien ( first job in glass as was a ceramics designer until then), Ulrika Hydman-Vallien, Ernst Gordon and Edvin Ollers.
1885-1980, had many owners in its 95 year history. Mostly unsigned and only had the Alsterfors sticker with the exception of the P.O.Strom designs which some of which were signed as such with a date.
Notable designers: Per Olof Strom, Edvin Ollers, Ingrid Atterberg and Fabian Lundkvist.
Easily recognisable for the most part with its unusual design and on some pieces a bubbled almost paperweight like design.
Aseda was bought out by Krona-Bruken AB in 1974 but they went bankrupt and closed in 1977.
Notable designers: Bo Borgstrom.
Founded by former Orrefors worker in 1917 and closed in 1976.
Notable designers: John-Orwar Lake.
Founded in 1876 and originally named Lindfors, changed its name to Strombergshyttan in 1933 when Edvard Stromberg leased the factory. His son Eric subsequently bought the factory and invested heavily in modernisation. Gerda and Asta designed most of the early work.
Notable designers: Gerda and Asta Stromberg, Captain H J Dunne Cooke, Gunner Nylund and Rune Strand.
Founded in 1898 but didn't start producing drinking glasses and vases etc until 1913. In 1916 and 1917 Simon Gate and Edvard Hald joined.
Graal items were produced from 1916 and most were unique unitl 1920 where up to 50 were made for each design.
In 1928 Vicke Lindstrand joined and designed some of their most famous pieces such as the
"Pearl Diver". In the 1930s Edvard Hald developed the Slip Graal technique which was still in production until 1989.
In 1940 as Lindstrand left Sven Palmqvist and Nils Landberg were coming through and were responsible for some very well kown designs like Stella Polaris, Ravenna and the Tulpan ranges.
Founded in1741 and still running today it is named from the first letters of the names of the founders Anders Koskull and Georg Bogislaus Stael von Holstein.
Ellis Berg started as a designer and graduated to artistic director. He left in 1950 and was replaced by Vicke Lindstrand.
Lindstrand was just coming out
of a designing hiatus and had been designing ceramics for 10 years. This was due to a clause in his contract at Orrefors that he could not design glass for a competitor for 10 years after leaving Orrefors.
Mona Morales Schildt joined in 1958 and designed a new style of thick heavy glass with window facets through coloured glass to clear.
Founded in 1825 by Countess Henriette Danneskiold-Samose after the death of her husband who had sought permission for the glass works from the king. This permission came through two years after he passed away.
Originally making bottles Holmegaard started producing tableware in the 1830s.
Notable designers: Jacob and Michael Bang, Per Lutken and Otto Brauer.
Founded in 1881 by Petrus Magnus Abrahamsson. In the 1920s and 1930s the Iittala design ethos sprang into life with design artists like Alvar and Aino Aalto leading the way.
Later designers like Tapio Wirkkala designed the line cut pieces like the Kanterelli vases, Timo Sarpeneva with the Festivo range and Oiva Toikka for the birds carried on innovating for the company.
Founded in 1680 just off Fleet street in London and was bought by James Powell a wine merchant in 1834 to be an occupation for his three sons. Harry Powell joined in 1875 and was a great innovator in the glass world developing heat resistant glass for laboritories, x-ray tubes and early light bulbs. Harry then went on the become involved in decorative glass and developed opalescent glass.
Harry was influenced by Roman and Venitian forms and this shows in his designs.
While Harry designed very delicate, light weight pieces Barnaby Powelldesigned slightly heavier but nonetheless still decorative items with wavy rib, ribbon trail and applied decoration. Then came William Wilson with much heavier cut glass designs like the comet vases (cut by Albert Tubby).
At the same time James Hogan was designing and also liked heavy, thick walled glass. Hogan's designs are recognisable for having a lobed base like the 9250 pillow vase to the left.
In 1954 Geoffery Baxter joined Whitefriars straight from the Royal School of Art and was influenced by Scandinavian design this design ethos was very evident in his work during the late 1950s and the early to mid 1960s. Then came Baxters "funkadelic" phase designing the textured range which came out in 1967. Three rather muted colours were used, Indigo, Cinnamon and Willow.
By 1969 more colours were added to the range including Tangerine and Kingfisher Blue. These proved to be very popular with the Banjo vase being particularly iconic for the range. By 1974 the textured range had moved on in colour and design to a less "in your face" look with more subtle colours. The late 1970s saw an end to the textured vases and much more cut glass being produced.
The factory was closed by parent company Zeals in 1980.
Opened in 1967 and was a commercial development by the Dartington Hall Trustees. They approached Frank Thrower who became chief designer and stayed until his death in 1987. Thrower was responsible for all of Dartingtons iconic designs.
Founded in 1967 with Domhnall O'Broin as designer. In 1962 he recruited Paul Ysart as training officer. OBroin was responsible for all designs until his departure in 1966. This was followed by the recruitment of Charles Orr who was responsible for the Ribbon Colour technique seen in the highly successful Oban range. Colin Terris came along in the early 1970s and was designer of some of the most successful ranges such as the Rondo range.
Formed by Michael Harris in 1973 after he left Mdina. Early pieces can be identified by a rough pontil mark. Harris was unhappy with this way of finishind and reprtedly found a coach bolt on the floor of his barn and used that to press into the base. This was used for a few months until Harris designed the flame pontil mark. Harris passed away in 1994 and his son Timothy continued with the glassworks until 2012 when liquidation forced closure.
However all was not lost as in 2013 Richard Harris (Michaels brother) bought the assets and reformed as Isle of Wight studio glass LTD in 2014.
Founded in 1968 by Eric Dobson and Michael Harris who left the island in 1972 leaving Dobson to run the company. In 1975 Joseph Said became production manager, then owner in 1985 when Dobson returned to the U.K.
Mdina glass is still running today and the Said family is still influencing production.
Formed in 1946 by Gino Cenedese, and was joined by Alfredo Barbini in 1947 who joined as artistic director, partner and master glass blower. Barbini left in 1950 to form his own company. Other designers were Fulvio Bianconi, Ricardo Licata and Napoleone Martinuzzi who were all there as freelance designers.
Cendese are probably best known for their aquarium sculptures designed by Alfredo Barbini.