MARI SIMMULSON. Vase, "Mars", model 4050, Upsala-Ekeby, 1952-54.

Earthenware. Incised decoration. Height 21.5 cm.

Background: Mari Simmulson (1911-2000) was the most versatile of all Upsala-Ekeby's designers. She was an artist to her fingertips, painting on canvas and ceramics, creating public decorations, designing textile patterns, drawing cartoons for Upsala Nya Tidning, and designing over 200 art pottery series in ceramics during her 22 years at the factory.

Mari Simmulson came to Sweden as a refugee fleeing the bombing of Tallinn in 1944. She was already a mature artist, and it did not take long before she was employed at Gustavsberg's porcelain factory, where she primarily worked with unique sculptures and painting on ceramics. In 1949, she came to Upsala-Ekeby, where she remained.

The question is what impresses most: her painting on the coarse chamotte ware, sensitive and powerful at the same time, or the modernist art pottery of the 1950s and 60s with a strict, often incised, and strongly stylized or geometric decoration. Regardless, she stands out as one of the leading designers in 20th-century Swedish ceramics.