The models in the famous “Lovö” series are regarded by many as Swedish Modernist, Axel Einar Hjorth’s masterpieces. This pine table from the series designed ca 1932 is well-known for its modern reduced design and Hjorth’s characteristic way of playing with classical themes, creating “primitive modernism”.

This pine Lovö table has a central stretcher, joining the two trestle ends with mortice and tenon joints. These joinery techniques are another typical feature of Hjorth that contribute to the innate aesthetic of his models. The rounded ends bring variety to the straight lines that define the table’s top and legs, marking the design ethos of playfulness with styles, which was later adopted by a younger generation of architects and designers and absorbed into aspects of Modernism in Sweden. At the time of this table’s design year, a new focus on health and leisure led to the official instalment of paid holiday leave by the Swedish government, which made it possible for more and more people to acquire a summerhouse. The Lovö series – named after one of the islands of the Stockholm archipelago - unified these modern ideas of leisure with the aesthetics of traditional provincial life. With his highly original strand of Primitive modernism, Hjorth was able to combine a farmhouse simplicity with a functional, modernist idiom.

Creating designs for a variety of Swedish furniture manufacturers, including the Stockholm department store Nordiska Kompaniet, Hjorth contributed to the burgeoning Swedish design culture and the international recognition it began to receive in the 1920s.

SOLD

Condition:

In good vintage condition. Wear consistent with age and use. Some stains and marks on the wood.

Dimensions:

70.86 in W x 29.33 in D x 28.34 in H

180 cm W x 74.5 cm D x 72 cm H

About the Designer:

Axel Einar Hjorth was born March 7, 1888 in Krokek outside Norrköping. From 1908, he studied in Stockholm at the Högre Konstindustriella Skolan (University of Arts, Crafts and Design later to be "Konstfack"). His career in furniture design started around 1920, when Hjorth started working at Nordiska Kompaniet under the architect and designer Carl Bergsten.

Hjorth worked as the head of the assembly section of Jubileumsutställningen (the Jubilee Exhibition) in Gothenburg in 1923. The English critic P. Morton Shand has characterized this exhibition as the beginning of the breakthrough of Swedish decorative arts. "The Gothenburg Exhibition of 1923 revealed [...] that [Sweden was] almost the only one that really counted as far as design and craftsmanship were concerned."

For more than 10 years, from October 1927, Axel Einar Hjorth acted as the chief designer/architect at Nordiska Kompaniet. During the years between the wars, Nordiska Kompaniet was one of the most important furniture producers in Sweden and above all, the most exclusive one. Nordiska Kompaniet and Axel Einar Hjorth took part in most of the important national as well as international exhibitions of that time.

The position as chief architect at Nordiska Kompaniet also meant that he received quite a few commissions to create interiors, although the company had a separate department for this purpose. Among the most striking commissions performed by Axel Einar Hjorth were the railway trains of the Shah of Persia and Nordiska Kompaniet's Paris shop. Axel Einar Hjorth left Nordiska Kompaniet in order to start his own business in February 1938.

Hjorth’s work that often times mixed Art Deco and Modernist influences, remains highly relevant even sixty years after his death. ~H.