Viola Gråsten 1910–1994
Viola Gråsten was a Swedish textile designer who helped popularize brightly-colored rya pile carpets beginning in the 1950s. Gråsten was born in Häme, Finland in 1910 and studied at the Central School of Crafts in Helsinki in the mid-1930s. She worked as a designer at Friends of Finnish Handicraft until 1944, when shortages of wool in Finland led her to immigrate to Sweden. In 1945, she joined Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) Textile Studio and started making her now well-known vibrant, geometric, nature-inspired carpets and textiles. Gråsten’s work was shown at the Röhsska Konstslöjdmuseum in Gothenburg in 1949, bringing her designs to wider prominence within Sweden.
In 1950 she began focusing more on creating textiles for NK that kept with the expressive, bold spirit of her carpets. In 1951, two of her designs, Raff and Tulipuu, won gold medals at the design Triennale in Milan and Raff received the Good Design Award (USA) in 1953. Throughout the 1950s, Gråsten continued to release textile designs that were bold and youthful and had broad appeal, as they could be used for upholstery, interior décor and clothing. In 1956 she became the artist director of the fashion textile department at Sweden’s Mölnlycke Väfveri AB, a position she held until her retirement in 1973.
Over the course of her prolific career, Gråsten created over 100 designs that continue to be singular, dynamic additions to mid-century Scandinavian textiles. She revolutionized the idea that textiles could be multi-purpose, decorating both the home and the body, and was fearless in presenting modern, forward-thinking patterns. In 1971, she was awarded The Prince Eugen Medal, given for outstanding artistic achievement by the Swedish royal family. Gråsten passed away in Stockholm in 1994, leaving behind a rich body of work that includes era-defining designs such as Oomph, Festivo and Scirocco.
