Jar, Model 2053

Narrator: 

One day in 1927, art student Nora Gulbrandsen is given an almost impossible task. 

Peder Valle: 

She was a student at the School of Arts and Crafts, about to finish a three-and-a-half-year education, and was headhunted, as we would say today, to Porsgrunn's porcelain factory, where she was really "on a mission", and it's a bit of fun. 

Narrator: 

Peder Valle, art historian at the National Museum. 

Peder Valle: 

Nora Gulbrandsen was hired in the autumn of 1927, when the factory was about to be represented at the big national exhibition in Bergen the following summer. 

Narrator: 

Porsgrunds Porselænsfabrik produces tableware and decorative items. The exhibition in Bergen in 1928 is a unique opportunity for the factory to show off - and preferably with something completely new! But time is short; the exhibition is only a few months away and nothing is ready. 

Peder Valle: 

In other words, we must remember that it can take several years to develop new tableware. Here she did it in record time. 

Narrator: 

Gulbrandsen designs a number of new objects and decorations which are exhibited in Bergen in the summer of 1928. And the national exhibition is a triumph. Gulbrandsen's design is described as both "taste-proof" and "refined". 

We can see the result in front of us today. This is Nora Gulbrandsen's vision for porcelain in the 20th century. 

Peder Valle: 

This is porcelain taken out of the comfort zone in a way, this is porcelain with strong colours and contrasts, lines, stripes, strict geometric decorations, sharp colors, gold edges. That's the funny thing about gold trim, some maybe think of it as conservative or old fashioned. But Nora Gulbransen put the gold down in the grooves, gilded geometric lid knobs that are set like little jewels. So, Nora Gulbransen is like a French jeweler who manages to turn porcelain into a new type of modern object of splendour. 

(...) 

For me, Nora Gulbrandsen is a bit uncompromisingly modern, sharp around the edges. She knows where she wants to go, but always with such continental elegance.