Tobias Mǿhl
Danish artist Tobias Mǿhl designs minimalist, filigree glass using Venetian techniques in a distinctively Scandinavian style.
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The list of makers, designers and lovers of glass in Scandinavia who have been impressed by the immense skill of Venetians at the furnace is long. On a visit to Venice in the early eighteenth century Frederick IV of Denmark was presented with a large collection of local glass that can still be seen in Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. Much later, in 1918, Simon Gate and Edward Hald used Muranese decoration techniques to revolutionize the design of wares produced by the Orrefors factory in Sweden. Conversely, in the 1930s Paolo Venini employed the Swedish artist Tyra Lundgren to design mould-blown animal sculptures and, beginning in the 1960s, enlisted the services of the Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala. The young Danish artist Tobias Mǿhl, winner of a competition for filigree glass inspired by Frederick IV's collection, thus forms part of a centuries-old tradition. He was born in Aalberg in 1970. At the age of nineteen he embarked on an apprenticeship at the now defunct Holmegaard glassworks in Næstved, receiving his master craftsman's diploma in 1992. By his own account, however, it was three master classes held by Lino Tagliapietra in 1996, 1997 and 2000 that set him on the right artistic path. Today, he runs a studio in Ebeltoft with his wife, Trine Drivsholm.
'My work', Mǿhl has said, 'is about using the Venetian techniques in a Scandinavian way rather than in a Venetian way. It is also about seeing the techniques as a tool to clarify and refine my personal expression.' He designs filigree glass in a wide variety of ways. Sometimes he arranges the threads in rows between ribs, horizontally or at a slight diagonal. At others he forms them into spirals or plaits, closely or widely meshed. Mǿhl also works with murrine, shaping them into patterns that appear flecked with iridescence or woven. Unlike Tagliapietra, he never releases torrents of color, but uses only colorless and white glass, combining them occasionally with metal stands. His shapes are correspondingly 'minimalist' - a word often used to describe his work. Their lightness and cool elegance will strike many as typically Scandinavian. Mǿhl's bowls often have tapering bases, with the bowl proper resting on a flat horizontal surface. This turns vessels into objets d'art. Similarly non-functional are the artist's vases and, in particular, his large murrine plates, which are displayed on stands to invite inspection by the connoisseur.
Mǿhl's work is included in many prominent public collections, including The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, The Danish Museum of Decorative Art in Copenhagen, Denmark, The Museum of Arts & Design in New York, New York, Malmǿ Kunstmuseum in Malmǿ, Sweden and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany.
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