Modern & Contemporary
10 – 11 May 2022

Welcome to our hammer auction Modern & Contemporary – an auction with Swedish and international Art, Prints, Photography, Sculpture, Modern Design classics from the 20th and 2000s, Silver, Jewelry and Carpets.

Tuesday 10 May, start 1pm CET: No 1–392
Works of Art, furniture and Design

Wednesday 11 May start 1pm CET: No 393–610
Swedish and International art, prints, sculpture and photography

With more than 600 pieces on offer, Stockholms Auktionsverk is holding its most significant Modern & Contemporary auction in several years. The auction includes several key works by Sweden’s greatest modernists, such as Isaac Grünewald’s watercolour Apache Dance and GAN’s futuristic and expressionist masterpiece “The white and blue sailor”. Other notable artists include Barbro Östlihn, Peter Dahl and Ola Billgren. The international department boasts the original painting “When Abdullah got the net ashore” – from Four Tales from the Arabian Nights by Marc Chagall, and the spectacular deconstructed Thale’s Cello by Fernandez Arman. The wide-ranging prints department includes Keith Haring’s Untitled 1-5 (Fertility Suite), a major collection of works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and significant works by Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso.

The decorative arts department is extensive with many exciting pieces. In particular, there is a large selection of attractive pine furniture designed by Axel Einar Hjorth and manufactured by Nordiska Kompaniet in the 1930s. Several exciting coffee tables by Svenskt Tenn are on offer, as well as Danish furniture classics such as Hans J Wegner’s “Sabre Leg Cabinet” and Ib Kofoed Larsen’s jacaranda sideboard. The rugs are represented by both Barbro Nilsson and Märta Måås Fjetterström. Fine early Graal glass pieces from Orrefors but also beautiful ceramics from Gustavsberg and large Farsta pieces and colourful Friberg vases. Among the unusual pieces are the vases and bowl by Shoij Hamada and Bernard Leach.

The auction’s silver department boasts several interesting pieces by popular modern designers and silversmiths such as Wiwen Nilsson, Erik Fleming, Johan Rohde, Harald Nielsen, Georg Jensen, WA Bolin, Tapio Wirkkala and Sawaya & Moroni. It is unusual to see jewellery by Rosa Taikon, and the auction includes several of her iconic works. But designers such Gunnar Cyrén and Björn Weckström are also represented.

We are particularly pleased to have received an unusual item by the design duo Sawaya & Moroni, a silver candelabra, “ABRA CADABRA CANDELABRA”, designed by William Sawaya in 1995. The architect and designer William Sawaya, together with the entrepreneur and philologist Paolo Moroni, have formed the iconic design duo since 1984. Their brand is mainly known for its exploration and interest in conceptual and challenging collaborations with architects and designers. Every piece from their studio is seen as a unique work of art; “The pieces presented here are all unique, each one always has a story to tell: the story that has brought them individually to their visible result, just like the portrait that each one of us has of ourselves, which tells how we have developed as individual human beings”.