Olaf Skoogfors

Olaf Skoogfors, also known as Gustav Olaf Jansson, Gustav Olaf Johnson, and Olaf Gustav Skoogfors, was born in Bredsjo, Sweden in 1930. He immigrated to the United States with his family at a young age, but discovered his Scandinavian design heritage only years later. He studied illustration at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, but turned to silversmithing and jewelry. Graduating in 1957, he set up a small shop and sold his production-line work. Skoogfors, a “constructivist by inclination," created compositions directly in metal. His early work exhibits a Scandinavian design aesthetic of clean lines and forms, influenced by his studies in the 1950s with Hans Christensen at the Rochester Institute of... more.