Biography

Swedish interior decorator and furniture designer Hans-Agne Jakobsson was born in Havdhem/Gotland in 1919. After finishing an apprenticeship as a carpenter, he studied architecture in Gothenburg and began his career as industrial designer at General Motors. Subsequently he became an assistant to the prominent furniture designers Carl Malmsten and Werner West. In 1951 he founded his own company, Hans-Agne Jakobsson AB, at Markaryd. There he not only created lighting design but also candlesticks, pieces of furniture and other implements.

Influenced by the nature of his native country, the southern part of Sweden, with its glittering lakes and vast dark woods, Jakobsson occupied himself in imaginative ways with light and illumination, the soft features of the light spectrum. As a talented designer who experimented with brass, iron, glass, fabric and wood shavings, he learned how to master direction and colour of light like only few people did. In choosing his materials, construction and design, he arranged it so that glaring bulbs and irritating decorations disappear. His designs unite practicality and a sense of wellbeing. Like his famous colleague, Poul Henningsen, Jakobsson counts among the light designers who became known for their attenuated, soft lighting. His designs for wood shavings were produced by Ellysett AB.

Jakobsson is well known in his Swedish home country, his lights do not only illuminate private homes but can be found preferably in public buildings.  

Objects by Hans-Agne Jakobsson