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Kaipiainen, Birger
The works of Birger Kaipiainen "Kaipiainen is the only thing I know," said Birger Kaipiainen on one occasion. And fortunately so, for Birger Kaipiainen (1915-1988) was one of the most original ceramists at the Art Department of the Arabia factory in Helsinki. Although unique works were his forte, Kaipiainen also presented a collection of tableware, entitled Paradise, in the late 1960s. When a black and white version of the
service was reintroduced in the autumn of 2000, an exhibition was staged at the Gallery of the Arabia Museum to provide a closer view of the designer.
Prince of ceramics, decorator supreme, ballet fan, lover of velvet, gold, and the glimmer of mirrors. A man of flowers, a character out of a fairy-tale, blue, surrounded by friends. Always surprising, the least boring person imaginable, colourist by the grace of God, devilish playing on forms. These are only a few of the terms in which friends and contemporaries have described Birger Kaipiainen.
Definitions, explanations and influences have also been sought for Kaipiainen's works, which invite the viewer to suggest interpretations: childhood summers on Lake Ladoga in Karelia, verdant nature, the Monastery of Valamo, the world of birds, the classics of Russian and French literature, music from Bach and Chopin to the Finnish modernist Erkki Salmenhaara, the arts from Byzantium and the Early Renaissance to Chagall and Dali, silence, and city parks. "I can't go and look for these images and ideas they appear by themselves. I read a lot, and listen. Why did the clocks stop at a certain time? Why did I put the clocks on the birds? I really don't know. I just felt it was beautiful." For Birger Kaipiainen, creativity was an integral and self-evident part of life, for which ceramics provided the right idiom.
Kaipiainen began to follow his path into the arts from an early stage. At the age of 11 he was given a trainee student's place at the Central School of Applied Arts in Helsinki, and a few years later he devoted himself completely to art, first at the School's department of ornamental painting (present-day stage design) and subsequently in ceramics. It was completely natural for him to begin work at the Arabia Art Department in 1937 after completing his studies, for he had already trained there during
the summers of his student years. " I was a ceramist. I got right to the top, to the ninth floor. For a while, I felt like an Italian Renaissance prince."
At first, Kaipiainen decorated faience pieces by painting and scraping. These included jugs, dishes, plates and innovations suchs as wall tiles and tea tables. The themes and subjects were lyric and mysterious: nocturnal forests with muses flying among the treetops and figures reaching for the stars amidst a sea of violets, or characters inspired by Italian Renaissance art that sometimes had the artist's own features. Kaipiainen was also fascinated by ballet themes, and one of his dreams came true when he was asked to design the stage sets for the ballet Sleeping Beauty at the Finnish National Opera.
In the early 1950s Kaipiainen's human figures grew in long shapes often interpreted as displaying Byzantine influences. Kaipiainen's works toured abroad in exhibitions of the Arabia Art Department and were successful at the Milan Triennials among other events. A four-year period from 1954 to
1958 as a visiting designer with the Rörstrand factory in Sweden was a two-fold experience. On the one hand, Kaipiainen missed the social life of Helsinki, but on the other hand loneliness helped foster new ideas and three-dimensional works. A trip to New York in 1955 to open an exhibition also made a lasting impression on Kaipiainen.
The boldest concepts were stored in the artist's mind and upon his return to Finland, they found expression in a stunning exhibition held at the Arabia showrooms on the Esplanade in Helsinki. "On show are the ceramist Birger Kaipiainen's explicitly 'crazy' works", "Enchanting extremes by a man rich in imagination with a brilliant command of form and a confident sense of colour" were some of the comments in the press. The exhibits included horses with legs in the shape of bureau drawers and
Kaipiainen's first bead birds. Two years later, in 1960, the bead birds earned Kaipiainen the Grand Prix at the Milan Triennial.
After returning from Sweden, Birger was allowed to choose an assistant from among the painters of the factory. The position went to Terho Reijonen, whom Birger regarded as hard-working, skilled and loquacious. Terho became Birger's trusted assistant and loyal friend for three decades. His first tasks involved the millions of tiny beads that Kaipiainen needed for his works. The beads were later cast industrially, but were still painted by hand.
And Kaipiainen continued to revise and reform his art. In the 1960s, the Arabia showrooms presented a cornucopia, "like a magic, luxuriant garden", original flora, and floral baroque. "Nowadays even his studio resembles a flowering garden." There were also angels playing harps: a blue one playing Händel, a red one playing Rahmaninov, and an orange one not knowing what to play. In 1966 Kaipiainen lost his dear spouse, Maggi, and his mother. Work was a consolation.
Towards the close of the decade, Kaipiainen's objects grew larger. He went on to make giant cress, daffodils, water lilies, thistles and a "great big blue violet", all in bloom as wild pop flowers. The culmination of the violets was Sea of Violets ( 9 x 4.5 m), displayed at Expo 67 in Montreal and later purchased by the City of Tampere. No less monumental was Solar Rain (1971), in which Kaipiainen explored human relations. I find it particularly important to develop human relations, which means I spend a great deal of time with my friends" at soirées, concerts, ballet evenings, parties, theatrical performances, at Arabia's Art Department and the Bökars villa owned by Marimekko's founder Armi Ratia, where Birger Kaipiainen had his own red room. Kaipiainen no doubt spent an unforgettable birthday, when Armi Ratia had chandeliers hung in the grounds and gathered all the water lilies of the region on the lawns
It was around this time that Kaipiainen made one his few mass-produced designs: a dinner service.
" It's all really still in the concept stage. I'll decorate the pieces with these plant and fruit motifs of mine, a bit like in that plate on the wall" Kaipiainen became interested in the project after many years of persuasion. He wanted to give the tableware the mood of his unique pieces, the tree of paradise and the oval shapes of the plates and bowls. The aptly named Paradise service came into production in 1969. It was available with both coloured and black and white decoration, and the monochrome parts were also named in keeping with the theme: the yellow as Adam and the white as Eve.
The later stages of the Paradise collection could be from a suspense story. It was taken out of production in 1974, when Arabia underwent profound changed. This decision caused a great of indignation, and both Paradise and Kaj Franck's Kilta service, another beloved collection of tableware, were described as belonging to the national heritage. Later, both services were given another chance, with due cause. Kilta became Teema in 1980, the production of the coloured version of Paradise was resumed in 1987, to be followed by its black and white counterpart in the autumn of 2000.
Other, rare, mass-produced designs by Kaipiainen were the Tapetti ornament covering the surface of tableware items from 1950s, pourer ornaments of the 1960s and various series of dishes from the 1980s and 1990s. The most recent addition to this series was Viola inspired by the violets of Expo 67 in Montreal and made as part of Arabia's Pro Arte Collection.
Birger Kaipiainen worked at his beloved Art Department at Arabia until his death, on the 18th of August 1988. Although he had been awarded a state artist pension in the early 1980s, he came to the Arabia factory every working day. His oeuvre of the 1980s concentrated on large, shallow plates to be hung on walls. Recurring in their themes were flowers, birds, the chandeliers of Bökars and other recollections of stagecraft. "I won't miss my birds and flowers once they've left me to go out into the world." At Birger Kaipiainen's funeral, the eulogy pointed to the role of the artist - not to come forth but to make things visible so that everyone may understand.
Transl. Jüri Kokkonen Translated quotes from newspaper and magazine articles from 1940s-1970s and from Marja Berg's 1986 biography of Kaipiainen issued in Finnish by Otava publishers.
service was reintroduced in the autumn of 2000, an exhibition was staged at the Gallery of the Arabia Museum to provide a closer view of the designer.
Prince of ceramics, decorator supreme, ballet fan, lover of velvet, gold, and the glimmer of mirrors. A man of flowers, a character out of a fairy-tale, blue, surrounded by friends. Always surprising, the least boring person imaginable, colourist by the grace of God, devilish playing on forms. These are only a few of the terms in which friends and contemporaries have described Birger Kaipiainen.
Definitions, explanations and influences have also been sought for Kaipiainen's works, which invite the viewer to suggest interpretations: childhood summers on Lake Ladoga in Karelia, verdant nature, the Monastery of Valamo, the world of birds, the classics of Russian and French literature, music from Bach and Chopin to the Finnish modernist Erkki Salmenhaara, the arts from Byzantium and the Early Renaissance to Chagall and Dali, silence, and city parks. "I can't go and look for these images and ideas they appear by themselves. I read a lot, and listen. Why did the clocks stop at a certain time? Why did I put the clocks on the birds? I really don't know. I just felt it was beautiful." For Birger Kaipiainen, creativity was an integral and self-evident part of life, for which ceramics provided the right idiom.
Kaipiainen began to follow his path into the arts from an early stage. At the age of 11 he was given a trainee student's place at the Central School of Applied Arts in Helsinki, and a few years later he devoted himself completely to art, first at the School's department of ornamental painting (present-day stage design) and subsequently in ceramics. It was completely natural for him to begin work at the Arabia Art Department in 1937 after completing his studies, for he had already trained there during
the summers of his student years. " I was a ceramist. I got right to the top, to the ninth floor. For a while, I felt like an Italian Renaissance prince."
At first, Kaipiainen decorated faience pieces by painting and scraping. These included jugs, dishes, plates and innovations suchs as wall tiles and tea tables. The themes and subjects were lyric and mysterious: nocturnal forests with muses flying among the treetops and figures reaching for the stars amidst a sea of violets, or characters inspired by Italian Renaissance art that sometimes had the artist's own features. Kaipiainen was also fascinated by ballet themes, and one of his dreams came true when he was asked to design the stage sets for the ballet Sleeping Beauty at the Finnish National Opera.
In the early 1950s Kaipiainen's human figures grew in long shapes often interpreted as displaying Byzantine influences. Kaipiainen's works toured abroad in exhibitions of the Arabia Art Department and were successful at the Milan Triennials among other events. A four-year period from 1954 to
1958 as a visiting designer with the Rörstrand factory in Sweden was a two-fold experience. On the one hand, Kaipiainen missed the social life of Helsinki, but on the other hand loneliness helped foster new ideas and three-dimensional works. A trip to New York in 1955 to open an exhibition also made a lasting impression on Kaipiainen.
The boldest concepts were stored in the artist's mind and upon his return to Finland, they found expression in a stunning exhibition held at the Arabia showrooms on the Esplanade in Helsinki. "On show are the ceramist Birger Kaipiainen's explicitly 'crazy' works", "Enchanting extremes by a man rich in imagination with a brilliant command of form and a confident sense of colour" were some of the comments in the press. The exhibits included horses with legs in the shape of bureau drawers and
Kaipiainen's first bead birds. Two years later, in 1960, the bead birds earned Kaipiainen the Grand Prix at the Milan Triennial.
After returning from Sweden, Birger was allowed to choose an assistant from among the painters of the factory. The position went to Terho Reijonen, whom Birger regarded as hard-working, skilled and loquacious. Terho became Birger's trusted assistant and loyal friend for three decades. His first tasks involved the millions of tiny beads that Kaipiainen needed for his works. The beads were later cast industrially, but were still painted by hand.
And Kaipiainen continued to revise and reform his art. In the 1960s, the Arabia showrooms presented a cornucopia, "like a magic, luxuriant garden", original flora, and floral baroque. "Nowadays even his studio resembles a flowering garden." There were also angels playing harps: a blue one playing Händel, a red one playing Rahmaninov, and an orange one not knowing what to play. In 1966 Kaipiainen lost his dear spouse, Maggi, and his mother. Work was a consolation.
Towards the close of the decade, Kaipiainen's objects grew larger. He went on to make giant cress, daffodils, water lilies, thistles and a "great big blue violet", all in bloom as wild pop flowers. The culmination of the violets was Sea of Violets ( 9 x 4.5 m), displayed at Expo 67 in Montreal and later purchased by the City of Tampere. No less monumental was Solar Rain (1971), in which Kaipiainen explored human relations. I find it particularly important to develop human relations, which means I spend a great deal of time with my friends" at soirées, concerts, ballet evenings, parties, theatrical performances, at Arabia's Art Department and the Bökars villa owned by Marimekko's founder Armi Ratia, where Birger Kaipiainen had his own red room. Kaipiainen no doubt spent an unforgettable birthday, when Armi Ratia had chandeliers hung in the grounds and gathered all the water lilies of the region on the lawns
It was around this time that Kaipiainen made one his few mass-produced designs: a dinner service.
" It's all really still in the concept stage. I'll decorate the pieces with these plant and fruit motifs of mine, a bit like in that plate on the wall" Kaipiainen became interested in the project after many years of persuasion. He wanted to give the tableware the mood of his unique pieces, the tree of paradise and the oval shapes of the plates and bowls. The aptly named Paradise service came into production in 1969. It was available with both coloured and black and white decoration, and the monochrome parts were also named in keeping with the theme: the yellow as Adam and the white as Eve.
The later stages of the Paradise collection could be from a suspense story. It was taken out of production in 1974, when Arabia underwent profound changed. This decision caused a great of indignation, and both Paradise and Kaj Franck's Kilta service, another beloved collection of tableware, were described as belonging to the national heritage. Later, both services were given another chance, with due cause. Kilta became Teema in 1980, the production of the coloured version of Paradise was resumed in 1987, to be followed by its black and white counterpart in the autumn of 2000.
Other, rare, mass-produced designs by Kaipiainen were the Tapetti ornament covering the surface of tableware items from 1950s, pourer ornaments of the 1960s and various series of dishes from the 1980s and 1990s. The most recent addition to this series was Viola inspired by the violets of Expo 67 in Montreal and made as part of Arabia's Pro Arte Collection.
Birger Kaipiainen worked at his beloved Art Department at Arabia until his death, on the 18th of August 1988. Although he had been awarded a state artist pension in the early 1980s, he came to the Arabia factory every working day. His oeuvre of the 1980s concentrated on large, shallow plates to be hung on walls. Recurring in their themes were flowers, birds, the chandeliers of Bökars and other recollections of stagecraft. "I won't miss my birds and flowers once they've left me to go out into the world." At Birger Kaipiainen's funeral, the eulogy pointed to the role of the artist - not to come forth but to make things visible so that everyone may understand.
Transl. Jüri Kokkonen Translated quotes from newspaper and magazine articles from 1940s-1970s and from Marja Berg's 1986 biography of Kaipiainen issued in Finnish by Otava publishers.
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