Kaarina Aho (1960s) Swelling Ladybug with Black Decor 9 cm

Kaarina Aho (born 1925 in Helsinki, Finland, died 1990) joined the Arabia factory’s Product Design Department in 1946 as an assistant to Kaj Franck. She had graduated from the Central School of Arts and Crafts as a model draughtsman but was not satisfied with her duties at Arabia, which involved work on decoration models and types for mass-pro­duced tableware. Her resignation, however, was not accepted, and the factory manage­ment sent her on a round of training periods in almost all of Arabia’s departments, from the laboratory to the glazing section. Aho became a versatile and expert designer on Franck’s team, where she worked from 1949 until 1962. This period was followed by work in her own ceramics workshop. Aho’s task at Arabia was to create additions to Franck’s basic tableware and to the Kilta collection. She responded to this challenge with four complete tableware services, the best known of which was Palapeli, in which Franck’s ideal of a purely geometric shape for tableware was successfully realized when based on conical form; even the series of bowls could be assembled into a large cone. Aho also worked with the potter’s wheel and created for her own exhibitions one-off utili­tarian objects in a wide range of rich color glazes. The BL mocha cup of porcelain with its simple geometric shape received a gold medal at the Milan Triennial in 1957. Source: "Arabia - Ceramics, Art, Industry" by Marianne Aav et al. (2009)