Monica Astrid Stensdotter Backström (20 May 1939 – 2 July 2020) was a Swedish artist and designer. She is known primarily for her works in glass.
Life and work
Backström was the daughter of textile designer
Astrid Sampe and Sten Hultberg, who worked in advertising and then started a textile business.
She studied at the
Konstfack
Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, is a university college for higher education in the area of art, crafts and design in Stockholm, Sweden.
History
Konstfack has had several different names since it was founded in 1844 by the eth ...
and Högre konstindustriella skolan from 1959 to 1964.
In 1965 she won a competition that was arranged for the 100th anniversary of Kosta Glasbruk (a Swedish glassworks now know as
Kosta Boda
Kosta Boda (), formerly known as Kosta Glasbruk (), is a Sweden, Swedish glassmaking company that is a well known manufacturer of art glass and tableware. It is located in Kosta, Sweden, which was named for the company. The surrounding region ha ...
), which led to her employment as a glass designer at the company.
She went on to work for Kosta for forty years.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, she also designed, clothing, jewellery, furniture, and household objects, made public artworks, and collaborated with artists and designers such as Erik Höglund,
Ulrica Hydman Vallien
Ulrica Margareta Hydman Vallien (24 March 1938 – 21 March 2018) was a Swedish artist who specialized in stained glass and decorative painting. In Sweden, she became best known for her vases with motifs of sinuous snakes, tulips and wolves.
W ...
,
Bertil Vallien,
Ann Wolff, and .
In Scandinavia, her work has been exhibited at or is held in the ,
Nationalmuseum
Nationalmuseum is the List of national galleries, national gallery of fine arts of Sweden, located on the peninsula Blasieholmen in central Stockholm.
The museum's operations stretch far beyond the borders of Blasieholmen, including the Natio ...
, and the
Röhsska Museum
The Röhsska Museum (, earlier named ''Röhsska konstslöjdsmuseet'', also known as Design Museum), is located in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is a museum focused on design, fashion and applied arts.
The museum collection consists of over 50,000 obj ...
amongst other galleries and institutions; elsewhere in Europe, pieces by Backström are in the collection of the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
in London,
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from its two most important donors, Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. The museum is located a ...
and the
Stedelijk Museum
The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. in the Netherlands;
as well as in collections in the United States and Japan.
Personal life
She was married to the architect Adam Backström from 1961 to 1965. Their marriage ended in divorce.
From 1968 to 1972 she lived with the artist Erik Höglund,
with whom she had a daughter, (born 1971), who is also an artist.
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Backström, Monica
1939 births
2020 deaths
Swedish women artists
Swedish designers
People from Stockholm