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November 25, 2009
Lucy Creagh, Helen Kåberg, and Barbara Miller Lane, eds. Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008. 352 pp.; 260 b/w ills. Paper $35.00 (9780870707223)
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CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2009.120

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At first glance, the “three founding texts” arrayed in Modern Swedish Design seem oddly matched. “Beauty in the Home” was first published by feminist and educational theorist Ellen Key in the Christmas, 1897, number of a magazine for women. Art historian Gregor Paulsson’s Better Things for Everyday Life (1919) is a self-described work of “propaganda” addressed to designers, manufacturers, and retailers. And the cryptically titled photo-essay, acceptera (1931)—a work usually described as Sweden’s “modernist manifesto”—was...