Segment from wall installation in dark blue blue glass by Edvin Ohrstrom 3

Edvin Ohrstrom, Sweden

Item 3 of 3

Segment from wall installation in dark blue glass.
Size: 23 1/2" (60cm) by 23 1/2" (60cm)
Some damage to glass. Photos and descriptions supplied on request.

These sculptures are part of an installation exhibited at the Seatrain offices in New York and the UN in the mid 1970s. Eventually the sculptures were removed from display and stored in a Seatrain warehouse where unfortunately, a number of pieces disappeared and many more were broken and damaged. Sometime in the early 1980's, Seatrain went bankrupt and the contents of the warehouse were liquidated in the spring of 1982.

It was at this point that the American glass artist Lucartha Kohler was in correspondence with Edwin Öhrström with a view to exhibiting some of his sculptures at the American Swedish Historical Museum. Kohler, Öhrström and A K Bohlin traveled to New York to salvage what was left of the sculptures. They removed twenty reasonably intact items and a few further boxes of broken items. The broken items were later melted down for reuse by Lucartha Kohler (with Edvin Öhrström's permission). Of those twenty items, these three remained in the possession of the museum, three further pieces were sold to individuals,and 14 others were removed in 1984 and their whereabouts are unknown.

Photographs of these items and the rest of the collection can be seen in "Öhrström Skulptur" by Folke Holmer, Stockholm, 1979. In this publication, there is also a picture of item no. 2 in an installation in Malmo Museum in 1968, and a picture of item no. 1 dated 1955.

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