Sylvia Stave - på rätt plats i rätt tid. : Formgivaren och hennes produktionsfält.

During ten years, from 1930 to 1940, Sylvia Stave was a celebrated modernist designer of tin and silver. An autodidact hailing from a small country town she moved to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, for an apprenticeship as a drawer/illustrator (ritare) at the goldsmith corporation; C.G. Hallbergs guldsmedsaktiebolag. Within a few months of her arrival her work was exhibited at the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition. She quickly rose to stardom as an avantgarde designer, she was one of very few women designers to be included in the collection of current design of Nationalmuseum during the 1930’s Sylvia Stave´s employer Hallbergs guldsmedsaktiebolag were a “supporting member” (stödjande medlem) of the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts (in Swedish Svenska Slöjdföreningen, or SSF). When looking at the career of Sylvia Stave it quickly becomes obvious of how dependent she was of the SSF. The aim of this study is to try and understand in what way the SSF could become so influential in the arts and crafts industry as a whole and also for the individual designer. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory about the field of cultural production is used to understand the rise and later on disappearance of Sylvi Stave. The conclusion is that the talent and hard work of Sylvia Stave would not have been sufficient in itself to make her successful. From the very beginning of her career, she was supported by the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts. As the interests of SSF and Sylvia Stave aligned in modernist design. The other reason was the way in which the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts were organising themselves, by managing to cover an almost complete field of cultural production. These observations facilitate the understanding of how in 1930, a young woman, an autodidact could so quickly reach the stars and ten years later become almost completely forgotten. As it was her employers membership to the SSF that enabled her quick rise coupled with her modernist design, that for a period aligned with the will and influence the SSF had on the scene.