Designer: Unknown

Item: Illums Bolighus Art Tile

Manufactured by: Unknown for Illums Bolighus

Country of origin: Denmark

Year made: 1950s

Materials: Ceramic with glazes

Dimensions: 7 ¼” x 7” x 3/8”

Condition: Excellent, and retains original hanging wire.

Description: Here is a beautiful and rare hanging art tile with a cubist glazed design made for and retailed by Illums Bolighus in Denmark. We are unsure of who the actual designer or artist is, but we have seen one other such hanging tile with a similarly cubist styled design retailed by Illums Bolighus that had an artist’s initials CA on it. That example was clearly done by the same hand as this tile. These tiles were likely commissioned by Illums Bolighus as decorative wares for their store to hang and compliment the furnishings they sold. It is a high quality object that would enhance any modernist home aesthetic. It retains its original foil label dating this to the late 1950s.

Illums Bolighus was a major Denmark department store and retailer of modernist designs by the era’s best known designers. It was founded in 1925 under the name BO and then later purchased in 1941 and renamed Illums Bolighus. They handled many of the most important Scandinavian and European modern designers. Some of the objects they sold were clearly sold under the name of the designer or manufacturing firm, but they also commissioned or ordered items by well known figures such as Carl Aubock and Aldo Londi, that did not have the names on them and then Illums Bolighus would put their label on it.