Monica Backström


Monica Astrid Stensdotter Backström was a Swedish artist and designer. She is known primarily for her works in glass.

Life and work

Backström was the daughter of textile designer Astrid Sampe and Sten Hultberg, who worked in advertising and then started a textile business. She studied at the Konstfack and Högre konstindustriella skolan from 1959 to 1964.
In 1965 she won a competition that was arranged for the 100th anniversary of Kosta Glasbruk, which led to her employment as a glass designer at the company. She went on to work for Kosta for forty years. In the late 1960s and 1970s, she also designed, clothing, jewellery, furniture, and household objects, made public artworks, and collaborated with artists and designers such as Erik Höglund, Ulrica Hydman Vallien, Bertil Vallien, Ann Wolff, and.
In Scandinavia, her work has been exhibited at or is held in the, Nationalmuseum, and the Röhsska Museum amongst other galleries and institutions; elsewhere in Europe, pieces by Backström are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands; as well as in collections in the United States and Japan.

Personal life

She was married to the architect Adam Backström from 1961 to 1965. Their marriage ended in divorce. From 1968 to 1972 she lived with the artist Erik Höglund, with whom she had a daughter,, who is also an artist.