LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980, the first exhibition to examine the extensive design exchanges between the United States and the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

The exhibition considers Scandinavian design’s enduring impact on American culture, as well as the United States’ influence on Scandinavian design, over nearly 100 years of cultural exchange. It features the work of Scandinavian designers who immigrated to the United States, Americans who studied or worked in Nordic countries, the ambitious campaigns to market and export Scandinavian design to American consumers, and the American and Nordic figures who championed sustainable and accessible design. Beginning with the arrival of Nordic immigrants in the United States in the 19th century, it traces the burgeoning American interest in Scandinavian design, and concludes by showing how the accessible and sustainable design movements in the 1960s and ’70s compelled both U.S. and Nordic designers to focus on pressing real-world problems rather than simply beautiful objects for the elite.

Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980 showcases more than 175 captivating examples of furniture, industrial design, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewelry, and lighting drawn from LACMA’s collection as well as from North American and Nordic museums and private collections.

“This exhibition proposes a new narrative of American design history, an alternate to the Bauhaus-centered story that focuses on Germany and central Europe. It posits that Scandinavian culture and design had a crucial impact in the United States, beginning in the late 19th century,” said Bobbye Tigerman, Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator, Decorative Arts and Design at LACMA, who co-curated the exhibition with Monica Obniski, formerly Demmer Curator of 20th- and 21st-Century Design, Milwaukee Art Museum, now Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the High Museum of Art. “The central themes are the influence of immigrants and their contributions to their adopted countries, the importance of questioning cultural stereotypes and critically analyzing marketing messages to understand their latent meanings, and how concerns about environmental protection and universal accessibility have been part of design discourse since at least the 1960s.”

“This is the first comprehensive Scandinavian design exhibition in the United States in 40 years,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “LACMA has been fortunate to work with the Milwaukee Art Museum and with our international partners to present the remarkable objects that illustrate how Scandinavian design has had a lasting impact on American life, and how that cultural exchange was mutual.”