Beneath the surface
A project about Josef Frank and his pattern “Under the equator”
Josef Frank fled Austria in 1933 due to antisemitism and settled in Sweden. During a second exile in New York in the 1940s, he created the Under Ekvatorn textile patterns. In my series of vases and candleholders, I draw inspiration from the colors of the textile. I call the series “Under ytan” — a reference to the way the glass pieces reflects light. But the title also hints at a deeper question: what was happening beneath the surface in the story of Swedish design history?
