Thanks Readers

Last month I asked for information

on a chair I'd found recently.

Two readers responded with the designer Yngve Ekstrom.

I wasn't totally sure because the arms were a bit different.

I thought maybe it was a knock-off.

I sent an email to Swedese, the manufacturer in

Sweden along with a few pictures.

Yesterday I received this reply:

Hello Jamie,

This chair is called Kurva. Designer is Yngve Ekström.

It is no longer produced.

Best regards

Cecilia

As it turns out, the Kurva was designed and produced in 1953.

Coincidently, the year I was born.

Thank you readers for sending me down the right path.

Biography

Yngve Ekström was born 1913, in Hagafors in

Småland, where the country's oldest furniture

factory was placed. His father, a carpenter

of wooden chairs, died early. At 13, Yngve

already worked at the factory. His talent for

carpentry, all-round practice and studies in

drawing, painting, sculpture and history of art

gave him a unique feeling for material and

construction.

Ekström's career coincided in time with the

best part of the postwar modern movement

when colleagues like Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson,

Arne Jacobsen and Poul Kjaerholm made the

concept "Scandinavian Modern" famous all over

the world. Yngve Ekström and his brother Jerker

founded Swedese in 1945 and Yngve was

leading the company until he died in 1988.

Ekström's furnitures have been exhibited in

Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Munich and

Belgrade and are represented in many modern

permanent collections, including the Victoria

& Albert Museum, London and National museum,

Stockholm.

Kurva in wicker

My Kurva in leather.

Mark of designer Yngve Ekstrom.