Bertil Vallien The Book - Collected Works

Bertil Vallien - 60 years as an artist, glass designer and ceramicist.

Bertil Vallien, one of Sweden's most popular and internationally famous artists and glass designers, looks back on his outstanding sixty-year career in a unique book in three volumes, published by Kosta Förlag. "It is a fantastic privilege to be documented in this way - to be able to make a summary with a lot of material that I have collected during all these years," says Bertil Vallien.

The largest of the three books is, as it should be, Book of Glass. It is above all as a glass artist that Vallien has made a big name for himself for more than half a century, with exhibitions all over the world, represented in museums such as the Metropolitan in New York and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and with world celebrities such as Bill Gates and Elton John among its many collectors worldwide.

The Book of Glass focuses largely on Bertil Vallien's many international exhibitions over the years, with "hits" in galleries and museums in Warsaw, New York, Chicago and Venice to name just a few.

The glass book is also published in an exclusive limited, signed special edition of 500 copies, intended primarily for Bertil Vallien's many collectors, with whom also follows a specially made glass vessel, the artist's most famous signature and can be found here.

Book of Clay depicts Bertil Vallien's beginnings as an artist and ceramicist - the art form he abandoned for good around 1975. As a potter, Vallien made himself known as a rebel already during his years in Los Angeles in the early sixties, among other things by spray-painting his objects with car paint.
“I was an artist and a ceramicist and started with glass to have a job, but when I found it the sand casting, I immediately felt that I found an expression that was worth throwing myself into, ”says Bertil. "I have never returned to ceramics but the material in the book is from the old days, almost only black and white pictures
which felt good to show. ”

Book of Drawings, finally, is a tribute to Bertil Vallien's lifelong love of drawing, by many artists, including Bertil, regarded as the very essence of artistic creation. A main theme in his characters are horses.
“In primary school at the age of 11-12, I was good at drawing horses, which made me popular among the girls. The gave me later the confidence to apply to Konstfack. I also did military service in 1957 as a cavalryman at K4 in Umeå, the last vintage of mountain hunters on horseback. I got my fill as a rider there and have not
ridden since then but I have continued to draw horses. For me, there is something amazing about these incredible powerful bodies and their submissiveness, a symbol of faithfulness and trust. ”

The author of the book is the form writer and TV producer Staffan Bengtsson, who is also exhibition commissioner and catalog editor for Ulrica Hydman-Vallien's exhibition and who produced The TV documentary about the artist for SVT.
"I have chosen to make the text a personal, relaxed and intimate conversation with Bertil, to de-dramatize the solemn in the art of glass ”, says Staffan Bengtsson. “A source of inspiration is James Lord's nice little one portrait book about Alberto Giacometti from 1965 ”.

Length: 34 cm

Width: 25 cm

Height: 11.5 cm

Book of Glass - 448 pages.  

Book of Clay - 178 pages.

Book of Drawings - 198 pages.