The Nordic Heritage Museum announced today the opening of a new "thought-provoking" exhibition.

"The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank" opens December 2 and will run through Sunday, February 19, 2012.

Austrian-born designer and architect Josef Frank (1885 – 1967) is considered a leading pioneer of Swedish Modern design. Unlike the severe approach to modernism taken by many of his contemporaries, Frank emphasized comfort and informality, producing whimsical designs inspired by nature.

Frank’s lavish use of bright, bold colors and floral patterns quickly became popular with a host of Swedish designers and clientele, who appreciated this new, more accessible approach to interior design.

"The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank" presents a remarkable array of textiles and furnishings that Frank produced throughout the course of his career, many of which remain in production today.

"Josef Frank's work is the epitome of classic Swedish design, with an international flair," said Barbro Osher, Swedish Consul General in San Francisco. "Often, the concept of Scandinavian design is somewhat Spartan, but Frank brought color and joy to the Swedish palate, redefined our national style and then exported it to the world."

On July 15, 2010, search giant Google paid homage to Frank by celebrating the 125th anniversary of his birth with a Frank-inspired Google logo. Google picked Frank’s designs because “they have similar objectives: innovation and love,” according to a Google spokesperson.

Educated in Vienna at the turn of the century, Frank’s architectural work was first established in 1908 in Germany, when he began practice as an architect in the office of Bruno Möring, one of Berlin’s leading architects. (Charles Édouard Jeanneret, later known as Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe were also in Berlin during this period.)

It was there that Frank met and married his Swedish wife, Anna Sebenius. Frank became known throughout Europe in the 1920s as one of the continent's leading modernists.

A theorist as well as an architect and designer, Frank thought about human needs and interior design in philosophical terms: “A home must not primarily be an effective machine; it must offer comfort, rest and a nice atmosphere where the eye can rest and the mind be refreshed. No puritanical principles in a good interior.”

Frank made numerous trips to Sweden, designing several houses there and filling orders for textiles and furnishings from Haus & Garten, the home furnishings company launched in 1925 by Frank and colleagues Oskar Wlach and Oskar Strnad.

The growing rise of Nazism in Vienna, coupled with the city’s economic depression, prompted Frank (who was Jewish) and his wife to move to Stockholm in 1933 to work at the interior design firm Svenskt Tenn, founded by Estrid Ericson in the 1920s.

Frank became a Swedish citizen and emerged as a principal designer at Svenskt Tenn, a long and fruitful relationship that would last more than three decades. The successful collaboration of Frank and Ericson, with Frank producing the textiles and furnishings and Ericson arranging interiors and overseeing the company, sparked a new, more accessible approach to interior design which became known as “Swedish Modern” following the Paris Exposition of 1937 and the New York World’s Fair of 1939, both of which featured work by Frank and Ericson.

"The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank" showcases many of the remarkable textiles and furnishings Frank created for Haus & Garten and Svenskt Tenn.

The objects on exhibition include: Primavera, a pattern designed for his home furnishings business in Vienna in the 1920s; an asymmetrical nineteen-drawer cabinet-on-stand designed in 1938 for Svenskt Tenn; and numerous New York-inspired patterns such as Green Birds and US Tree created during his stay in Manhattan in the 1940s.

During the exhibition, the Museum’s Gift Shop will feature a very exclusive selection of Svenskt Tenn merchandise imported from Sweden: everything from beautifully rendered note cards to hand-printed throw pillows made from Josef Frank designs.

This exhibition was produced by the San Francisco Airport Commission, and was made possible through a generous loan from Svenskt Tenn, Stockholm, Sweden. The Nordic Heritage Museum gratefully acknowledges support from 4Culture, Artsfund, Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Swedish Council of America, and The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.