Platter - c.1951

Laminated birch
48 x 24,8 cm
Edited by Martti Lindqvist, Finland
Underside incised with "W"

Literature:
House Beautiful (New York), "The most beautiful object of 1951", January 1952, pp. 66-67
Marianne Aav and Nina Stritzler-Levine, Finnish Modern Design: Utopian Ideals and Everday Realities, 1930-1997, New Haven, 1998, front cover, p. 232, fig. 10-1; for a drawing, p. 244, fig. 10-8
Marianne Aav, Rosa Barovier Mentasti and Gordon Bowyer, et al., Tapio Wirkkala - Eye, hand and thought, exhibition catalog, Museum of Art and Design, Helsinki, 2000, inside front cover, p. 63, fig. 130, p. 228, fig. 403, p. 267, fig. 460 and p. 288

Tapio Wirkkala was awarded the Grand Prix at the IX Triennale di Milano 1951 with a.o. this elegant leaf-shaped tray. More than seventy years later it still stands its ground as a timeless icon of modern design.

A similar tray belongs to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (inv. 242.195).