Kaj Franck to be celebrated throughout 2011
Designer and professor Kaj Franck would celebrate his 100th birthday in 2011. To mark the centennial, a number of Finnish design institutions are organizing a series of programmes to honor the legacy of this leading and one of the most influential figures in of Finnish design.
Franck (1911-1989) served a long and productive career in the employ of Iittala’s Nuutajärvi glass factory and as a designer and director of design at the Arabia porcelain factory. Franck was also a teacher of design, serving at the predecessor of what is now known as the Aalto University School of Art and Design.
Kaj Franck has been awarded a large number of Finnish and international awards and prizes and his work has been displayed at a range of design museums around the world. Some of his most famous objects are the Teema tableware and the glass series Kartio.
Design Museum and Finnish Glass Museum exhibitions
The Kaj Franck centennial year’s varied programmes will culminate in a major retrospective exhibition at Design Museum, open to the public from June 15 through September 25, 2011.
This exhibition at the Finnish Glass Museum presents a lesser known aspect of Kaj Franck as an eternal experimenter, skilled colourist, and free glass artist with the aid of a large private collection and unique, one-off art objects from the museum's own collection. Glass art was an important inspiration for his items designed for mass production. Exhibition time from February 18 through August 28, 2011.
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Kaj Frank 100 years
Finnish Glass Museum