Saara Hopea
Saara Elisabet Hopea-Untracht (1925-1984). One of the leading figures of post-war Finnish design, Saara Hopea-Untracht brought exceptional clarity, balance and refinement to glass, jewellery and decorative arts. Trained as a furniture designer at the Central School of Industrial Arts in Helsinki, she began her career designing furniture and lighting before joining Kaj Franck at Nuutajärvi Glassworks in the early 1950s. Together they helped redefine Finnish glass through clean forms, functional beauty and a modern aesthetic inspired by Bauhaus principles. Hopea's celebrated Harlekiini stackable drinking glasses became an icon of Nordic modernism, while designs such as Pantteri, Flamingo and Bistro demonstrated her remarkable sense of proportion, colour and versatility. After moving to New York in 1960 with her husband, jewellery scholar Oppi Untracht, she explored enamel art and developed an innovative technique of firing multiple transparent enamel layers to create richly luminous surfaces. Returning to Finland in 1967, she continued designing jewellery, textiles and silverwork, producing bold geometric pieces that remain highly sought after today. Awarded silver medals at the Milan Triennale in 1954 and 1957 and the Finnish State Design Prize in 1982, Hopea is remembered as one of Finland's most influential multidisciplinary designers, whose timeless work continues to define the elegance of Scandinavian modernism.