252. ALVAR AALTO. Serving trolley, licensed by Aalto Design Hedemora for Artek, Sweden 1946-56, model 900. birch, top in green tile from Fiskars (Finland) and basket in rattan.

Height 59, 90 x 65 cm.

PROVENANCE Ingvar Norman, Ernst Sundhs Byggnads AB.
Bukowski's Auctions, Contemporary & Design 585, 2015, auction number 61.

ARTEK IN HEDEMORA 1946-1956
On 12 April 1946, the Swedish AB Artek factory was inaugurated on Callerholmsgatan in Hedemora. Alvar Aalto's new factory was a collaboration with Ernst Sundh Byggnads AB and the purpose was to secure deliveries of Aalto's various furniture models to the rest of Europe and especially to the United States.
Ernst Sundh, who had close contacts with Aino and Alvar Aalto, quickly received large orders from the United States. However, due to long payment credits, profitability became weak and Aalto decided to close production after ten years. From the year 1957, the factory's activities shifted to producing kitchen furniture.

Ingvar Norman was the head of Ernst Sundh's drawing office and had many engineers under him. At most, thirty people worked in the drawing office. Alvar Aalto designed furniture for the interiors of Ernst Sundh's headquarters and for its design office.
From time to time there were great ambitions to allow Alvar Aalto to make his mark on the resorts of Avesta and Hedemora in the southern Dalarna. However, the plans never came to fruition and apart from the “Blue House” in Avesta, there are few traces of the close cooperation between Aalto and Ernst Sundh Byggnads AB today.
The auction's serving trolley has the provenance of Ingvar Norman and has previously been found at Ernst Sundh's drawing office in Avesta.

HISTORIAN
Alvar Aalto's tea-trolley 900 was designed in 1937 for the Finnish furniture manufacturer Artek, and displayed at the 1937 Paris World's Fair. The smooth sweeping lines of the well-balanced bent wood construction, combined with the light rattling, tiles and wheels, quickly made the model a modern classic, and is the epitome of good Scandinavian design. The inspiration, however, came from a completely different direction. For the carriage, Aalto had been inspired by the British tea culture, while the design shows influences from Japanese carpentry technology. The auction's tea trolley is an early example, made during the 1940s, and also has a very unusual tile that reportedly comes from Fiskars.