OIVA TOIKKA - Moments of Ingenuity
30 May - 19 September 2010

In 2010, Oiva Toikka (born 1931) will celebrate his career of 50 years as a designer for Iittala. In honour of the event, Design Museum's summer exhibition of 2010 will be a major retrospective of Oiva Toikka's work.

Oiva Toikka is known as a playful spirit in Finnish design and as someone who has always followed his own path. His colourful and rich idiom of form has gained many admirers, both in Finland and abroad. As an artist and designer, Toikka is a perpetual seeker and experimenter. He began his collaboration with Arabia-Nuutajärvi-Iittala in 1956–1959 with stylized animal sculptures that he created at the Arabia factory's Art Department. In 1963, Toikka began his work in glass that has continued to the present day. Alongside ceramics and glass, Oiva Toikka has designed, among other works, textiles, opera sets and costumes, and plastic products. 

 
The exhibition at Design Museum presents Toikka's extensive oeuvre, from his early ceramic sculpture of the 1950s to present-day objects of glass and plastics. The exhibits include his popular series of glassware, the so-called glass birds that are greatly appreciated by collectors and impressive one-off works. The exhibition offers a journey rich in experiences into Toikka's colourful world of fairy-tale.

In association with:  

Photos:
(Left) Oiva Toikka / Nuutajärvi, Ibis, 2005, photo by Timo Junttila.
(Right) Oiva Toikka / Nuutajärvi, art object Vuosikuutio 2006. Photo by Timo Junttila.