Vintage view: Estrid Ericson of Sweden

Kya deLongchamps hails the bold entrepreneur with an eye to refine the exquisite with the homely, Estrid Ericson of Sweden, founder of Stockholm retailer, Skenskt Tenn.

Vase Profile by Anna Petrus, c.1928. Antique. Available new from €1,800, www.svensktten.se

It’s almost impossible to appreciate just how hard it was to elbow your way forward as a woman in the art and design world in the first half of the twentieth century.

Even highly decorated and gifted modernist geniuses including Eileen Grey (1876-1978) and the brilliant, American artist Georgia O’Keefe (1987-1986) were attacked from without and within.