Bertil Vallien Biography

Bertil Vallien is one of the most famous and highly respected European glass artists. A contemporary of Tagliapietra, he hails from Sweden, where he graduated at the top of class at Stockholm’s University of Art and Design. Vallien achieved great success first as a ceramicist in California before returning to Sweden to be recruited by legendary glasshouse director Eric Rosen. He has worked as a freelance designer for Kosta Boda Glassworks Sweden since 1963.

Vallien’s work most often arrives in the forms of faces, altars, and ships, all figures in some manner of concrete or abstract transition. His website explains further, stating that “[t]he ship is a perfect vessel for the expression of loneliness. It is evocative of femininity, of adventure, of catastrophe, a thin protective shell that demands the absolute respect of all aboard. It is a society in isolation, a self-contained world afloat on the sea.”

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