If there's anything cooler at the moment than Mid-Century style, it would have to be Scandinavian Mid-Century style, and this ice bucket has, so to speak, buckets of it. It's called "Alaska" (who says Scandinavians have no sense of humour?) and it was designed by Willy Johansson, one of Norway's top 20th century glass designers, for Hadeland Glassverk.
Hadeland Glass works were founded in 1762 in Jevnaker on the southern end of one of Norway's largest lakes, making it the oldest, continuously operational industrial company in the country. For its first 90 years its production was mainly utilitarian (medicine bottles, apothecary jars etc). A new manager in 1852 changed the company's direction towards the creation of tableware, small crystal objects and vases, but Hadeland did not design its own wares: until the 1920s they simply copied objects from other European countries. Willy Johansson started with the company as an apprentice in 1936, following in the footsteps of his father - by this time the firm's master glassblower - and his grandfather. In 1939 he received a three-year scholarship to study at the Norwegian School of Crafts and Art, and by 1947 he was back at Hadeland as a designer, charged with revitalising the firm's tableware. Over the next decades he established himself as one of Norway's top glassmakers, receiving multiple national and international awards and prizes, presenting solo exhibitions of his work and seeing his designs purchased for major museum collections.
The Alaska ice bucket was designed in 1957, at the height of Scandinavian design's golden age: in the same year Johansson won the gold medal at the Milan Triennale for a vase which was later described as "A work with nerve, exciting, but at the same time filled with quietness and harmony". Johansson applied the same standard to individual works of art glass as he did to Hadeland's tableware, and many of his designs became instant classics and continued being produced for decades.
The Alaska ice bucket shares many characteristics with those of Johansson's works that put Scandinavian glass at the forefront of mid-century design: the deepwater colour that reminds us that some Arctic peoples only have one word to encompass blue, green and black; the shape, which is sculptural and functional but challenges expectations of what is decorative; the Scandinavian ideal of 'democratic design', that is both innovative and accessible.
This bucket is complete with its original metal handle, strainer and a set of tongs (stainless steel and made in Japan, but originally sold with the ice bucket) which end in two curved, five-pointed scoops like little hands, adding a quirky human touch to a set that might otherwise verge on the severe. It is in excellent condition: I can find no chips or cracks and there are only one or two very minor scratches, which are only visible on close inspection. There is some dark freckling on one of the 'hands' on the tongs, but again these are not particularly noticeable.
This is a piece of mid century design history: Willy Johansson's pieces are represented not only in Scandinavian collections but in the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert, and the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. It's not often you can have something in your home that came from the same workshop and was made by the same hands as museum pieces. It doesn't just look like something off the set of Mad Men - it was part of the era and design movement that inspired it.
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