Saara Elisabet Hopea-Untracht (1925 –1982) was a Finnish designer whose work included glassware and jewellery.

Personal life and education

Hopea was born on 26 August 1925 in

Porvoo Porvoo (; ; ) is a city in Finland. It is located on the south coast of the country, on the Gulf of Finland. Porvoo lies in the eastern part of the Uusimaa region. The population of Porvoo is approximately , while the Porvoo sub-region, sub-re ...

Uusimaa Uusimaa (; , ; both lit. 'new land') is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme), and Kymenlaakso. Finland's capital and largest city, Helsinki, alo ...

, Finland. She was the granddaughter of goldsmith Samuel Mika Westerlund, her mother was a talented craftswoman, and her father Ossian Hopea was manager of the Westerlund goldsmiths business. She studied from 1943 to 1946 at the Central School of Industrial Design or School of Applied Arts, now part of

Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture; ; ), was formed of two separate schools: the faculty of architecture (previously part of the Helsinki University of Technology) and the University of Art and Design Helsinki (UIAH, known in ...

, in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, and gained a degree in interior design. She married Oppi Untracht, an American metalsmith, writer and educator, in 1960, after meeting him when he visited Finland in 1954. She died in Porvoo on 25 June 1982.

Work

Hopea worked in furniture design from 1946 to 1948 and then joined metalsmith

Paavo Tynell Paavo Viljo Tynell (25 January 1890 – 13 September 1973) was a Finland, Finnish designer who is best known for his lighting fixtures and lamps. Among other things, Tynell designed the lighting for the office of the Secretary-General of the Unite ...

's company from 1948 to 1952. She then joined where she designed glassware, and her work "epitomized the minimalist ideal of 1950s Finnish style, which had been influenced by the Bauhaus design philosophy." After her father died in 1948 she began to design silver for his shop in Porvoo. After she married Untracht the couple moved to New York and she started to work in enamel. "By overfiring transparent enamels on copper, she was able to achieve results that gave the work a spontaneous, painterly look with intense colors and great depth.", and she sold many pieces through exclusive shops. The couple traveled in Nepal and India for four years, studying, photographing and collecting local metalwork and jewellery; Untracht published his ''Traditional Jewelry of India'' in 1997. They returned to Porvoo in 1967, and Hopea's work thereafter included silversmithing, textile design, and enamelling. Her jewellery has been described as "a tranquil contemporary statement of the Scandinavian esthetic." the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

holds 28 of her works, and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

11 items. In 1988 her husband published ''Saara Hopea-Untracht. Life and Work''.

Personal life and education

Work

References

Further reading