Monica Backström

Monica Backström (1939–2020) was a Swedish glass artist, designer, and artist, best known for her expressive and experimental work for Boda and Kosta Boda. Her work often combined playful forms, strong colours, and a vivid sense of imagination, ranging from functional glass objects to sculptural series inspired by nature, fantasy, and space-age imagery. She became one of the most distinctive figures in Swedish glass design during the late 20th century.

Biography

Monica Backström was born in Stockholm in 1939. She came from a creative background as the daughter of textile designer Astrid Sampe and director Sten Hultberg. Between 1959 and 1964, she studied at Konstfack in Stockholm, where she worked with design and craft, including objects in silver and jewellery.

Her connection to glass began through a design competition arranged for Boda glassworks’ 100th anniversary. Backström won the competition, which led to her employment at Boda glassworks in 1965. This marked the beginning of a long and influential career within Swedish glass design, where she became known for her curiosity, experimentation, and highly personal visual language.

During the 1970s, Backström created some of the works most closely associated with her name, including glass sculptures in the form of mushrooms and eggs. Produced in a wide range of sizes and colour combinations, these objects reflected the period’s interest in nature, organic shapes, and decorative glass with a playful presence. Some were also developed as table lamps, further blurring the boundary between sculpture, design, and functional object.

In the 1980s, Backström continued to explore more imaginative and futuristic themes through series such as Rymd, or Space, consisting of glass forms inspired by rockets and cosmic imagery. Later series included Tonga, Taiga, Cosmic Garden, and Fantasia, while her 2000s work returned to space-related themes through series such as Moon Rockers and Moonlanding.

Alongside her work in glass, Backström also designed jewellery, painted, and created public commissions. Her work was exhibited internationally, including in Scandinavia, Europe, the United States, and Japan, and she is represented in museum collections. Today, Monica Backström is remembered as one of Sweden’s most original glass designers, valued for her experimental spirit, rich colour sensibility, and ability to give glass a playful, poetic, and unmistakably personal expression.