artist: Runo 'Lette' Johansson (Swedish 1908-1981)
medium: terracotta on wooden plinth
dimensions: 19 1/2 cm high (approx)
signed
AU $950 (approx US $615 / 580 EUROS / 94,500 yen / 495 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist biography
Runo Vilhelm Lette Johansson was born November 11, 1908 in Stockholm. He was was a Swedish sculptor and illustrator.
Lette trained in sculpture at the Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna (Royal Academy of Liberal Arts )in Stockholm from 1933 to 1938. His lifelong interest in the native Sami, indigenous people of the northernmost parts of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia, led him to work as an illustrator for Ernst Manker at the Nordiska Museet (Nordic Museum) in Stockholm. He traveled around Lapland in the 1940s documenting the life and work of the Sami. During the years 1948 to 1952, he was a Sami craft consultant in Jokkmokk at the Sami Folk High School and in 1968 published the book Mönsterbok i Samisk slöjd.
He was married to Märtha Lette (1909–1992), a textile artist specialising in fine weave.
Select public artworks byt Lette include ‘Timmerflottaren’ (1954) bronze, the town square in Jokkmokk, ‘The sign of the fortune teller’ (1964), copper, Vattenfall's office, Vuollerim, ‘Smederna’, stainless steel, Kungsgatan in Avesta, ‘Elie ascension’ (1970), copper on stainless steel, Avesta, ’Samhällsbyggarna’ (1970), stainless steel in Västerfärnebo, and ‘Hasselforssmederna’ (1965) stainless steel, Bruksparken in Hasselfors.
Lette passed away on at the age of 73 on December 12, 1981 in Avesta.