Lena Larsson Pine Candlesticks

A pair of red pine candlesticks by Lena Larsson, handmade at the Boda Trä workshop, Sweden, C.1965. 

Boda Glassworks founded a carpentry department in the early 1960's to explore and revitalise the woodworking traditions in the local village. The workshop employed skilled craftspeople from the community and used only local pine.  Although Boda greatly utilised the village's historical traditions of craft, rather than produce vernacular designs, the workshop's output was characterised by a modernist & often playful aesthetic. 

Larsson's design gently bridges the gap between antiquity and the mid-20th Century. The candlesticks' undulating form emulates the elegant curves and tapers of traditional antique pine homewares. Their Modernity comes not from their primary-red colour, but from their scale & proportions; their chunky & exaggerated form conveys the bold, confident air of the mid-20th Century.

The painting of wooden objects is a long tradition in Sweden, but Larsson has instead chosen to stain these candlesticks, achieving a vibrant colour yet allowing the natural beauty of the wood's grain to show through.

Larsson's stylish pine candlesticks represent the remarkable marriage of skilled craft, modern design and Swedish cultural heritage.