BERNDT FRIBERG, KERAMIKER
Ulf Hård af Segerstad
Ulf Hård af Segerstad: BERNDT FRIBERG, KERAMIKER. Stockholm: Nordisk Rotogravyr, 1964. First edition. Text in Swedish. Photographically illustrated glazed boards. 122 pp. + one folding plate. 84 photographic text illustrations and plates in color and black and white. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. Very faint wear to board edges, otherwise a fine, fresh copy.
7.5 x 10 hardcover book with 122 pages well illustrated with 84 black and white and color photographs illustrating the various periods in Friberg's artistic output. The standard work on Berndt Friberg [1899-1981], Swedish ceramist, designer, craftsman at the Gustavsberg factory. Includes list of exhibitions up to 1964, and a fold-out diagram with production marks and Friberg's preferred shapes.
Sweden's master potter, Berndt Friberg was originally employed as thrower to Wilhelm Kage and Stig Lindberg at Gustavsberg's pottery. His work is sensuous and at it's best when treated with his characteristic matt glazes in the oriental manner, which were painstakingly applied to achieve an astonishing structure and depth.
Friberg was born to a family of pottery makers and started his career as a youth at Hoganas pottery. From 1944 to his death, he produced ceramics for the legendary Gustavsberg Studio, the workshop created by Wilhelm Kage as a platform for artists to independently create unique ceramic art ware.
Friberg threw and glazed all his stoneware vessels himself. He was a perfectionist and did not keep any pieces which were not to his satisfaction. He found inspiration in traditional Chinese and Japanese glazes while experimenting his way to his significant rabbit's fur glaze.
Friberg participated in not less than 40 exhibitions, and during his career, that lasted almost half a century, he received many awards including the gold medals at the Milan Triennale in 1948, 1951 and 1954.
Ulf Hård af Segerstad graduated from Upsalla University in the early 1940s and went on to a distinguished career as a journalist who specialized in architecture and applied arts criticism. He served as editor of Form, the offical journal of The Swedish Society for Industrial Design.