Edvin Öhström | 1906 - 1994
Karl Edvin Öhrström, born August 22, 1906 in Burlöv, died December 2, 1994, was a Swedish sculptor, glass artist. Öhrström grew up in Halmstad, where his father worked as a craftsman on the railway. After starting as a railway worker in 1923-1925, Öhrström trained as a drawing teacher at the Technical School in Stockholm 1925-1928 and at the Academy of Arts' sculpture line 1928-1932 with Carl Milles and Nils Sjögren as teachers. At the school he was awarded a Chancellor's Medal in 1930, a Royal Medal and a traveling scholarship in 1932 which he used for study trips to, among other places, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany and Belgium. During his time in Paris in 1932, he studied at the Académie Colarossi under Charles Despiau at the Académie Scandinave Maison Watteau and under Fernand Léger at the Académie Moderne and otherwise conducted self-study of French cathedral art and Egyptian sculpture.
Edvin Öhrström won a competition to decorate Sergels Torg in Stockholm with a 37.5 meter high steel structure with 60,000 glass prisms and lit from within. The jury's justification was that "its proportioning to the site is convincing and it forms an accentuated axis for the entire city area. This 130-ton glass column, Kristall, vertical accent in glass and steel, is made of steel, which is clad with architectural glass from Lindshammar's glassworks and inaugurated in 1974. According to Edvin Öhrström's original intentions, the glass column was to be illuminated from the inside. Such lighting was first installed in 1993. The light source is four spotlights mounted inside the obelisk with metal halide lamps of 1,800 Watts each and with a color temperature of 5,600 degrees Kelvin.
He participated a few times in Sweden's general art association's salons in Stockholm 1936-1941 and in Skåne's art association's exhibitions 1944-1962, the Nordic Art Association's exhibitions in Helsinki and Gothenburg, Liljevalch's Stockholm salon in 1959 and 1962 as well as group exhibitions in Gothenburg, Borås, Båstad Antwerp, Rome and Tokyo. He was represented in the exhibitions Sculpture in Nature which was shown in Stockholm in 1948, the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937 and the Triennale in Milan where he was awarded a Grand Prix in 1955.
Öhrström is represented at, among others, the National Museum, the Modern Museum in Stockholm, the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the Kalmar Museum of Art, Malmö museum, Helsingborg's museum, Halland's art museum, the Röhsska konstslöjd museum, the Orrefors glassworks museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
Spring Girl (1950), bronze, in the foyer of Halmstad's town hall and outside Folkets Hus in Varberg
Youth (1940), Tuna Backar in Uppsala
In honor of the work (1943), relief in granite, the facade of Hattmakargatan 12 in Gävle
At the hospital gates (1945), red granite, Karolinska University Hospital Solna
The King's Meeting (1952), granite, Stora Torg in Halmstad
Handverkstenen (1952), granite, Glasbruksklippan, Sandbacksgatan in Stockholm
English bulldog (1959), Lorensbergsgatan 4 in Malmö
Crystal, vertical accent in glass and steel (1974), Sergels torg in Stockholm
