Yngve Ekstrom Biography
Yngve Ekström was born in the village of Hagafors in southern Sweden in 1913, as the son of a furniture manufacturer. His father died when he was less than three years old. However, the wood carvings his father made in his spare time influenced Ekström's work later. Already at the age of thirteen he was active in cutting, drawing, painting, making music and learning the history of art. He subsequently specialized as an interior designer, becoming completely self-taught.
In 1944, together with his brother Jerker, he founded the successful furniture factory ESE-möbler, which later took the name Swedese AB. In 1953, the turning point came when his furniture designs were exhibited at Stockholm's main shopping centre, Nordiska Komanite. Two years later, he presented a new furniture collection at the H55 exhibition in Helsingborg. Swedese furniture is distributed in unassembled kits and is assembled by customers or resellers. This practice, which requires the use of a hex wrench, which is the only tool needed for assembly, is the idea of brother Jerker Ekström, long before furniture giant IKEA adopted this distinctive brand.
Ekström's best-known design is the Lamino chair, created in 1956. After numerous design tests regarding the lines, structure and production technique, the chair was launched on the market in 1956. It is a chair made of wood of beech, glued and folded, with the original version covered in sheepskin. The chair immediately impressed the public thanks to its elegant appearance, light weight and perfect back support.
The Lamino chair has a certain degree of resemblance to the Pernilla chair, designed by Bruno Mathsson, another Swedish chair designer of the time. This chair represents the ideal image of the designer, trying to achieve elegance in its simplicity, and with this design, he has certainly succeeded. In 1999, the Lamino chair was voted "Swedish Furniture of the Century" by readers of the Swedish magazine Sköna Hem (Beautiful House). To date, the chair is still in production and more than 250,000 copies have been sold. Regarding his work as a chair designer, Ekström once told a reporter from the Swedish newspaper Arbete that creating a good chair might not be a bad job to do for a lifetime.
