Oiva Toikka | ScandinavianDesign.com

Oiva Toikka (1931–2019) trained as a ceramic artist at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki and worked at Arabia from 1956 to 1959 before Kaj Franck brought him to the Nuutajärvi glassworks in 1963. He preferred to call himself “an artist who also designs” rather than a designer, a distinction that runs through five decades of glass work built as much on accident and humour as on technical control.

At Nuutajärvi, Toikka designed the Kastehelmi tableware series in 1964 and the Tundra collection in 1970, the same year he won the Lunning Prize. In the early 1970s he began signing individual glass birds, a body of work later named Birds by Toikka once Nuutajärvi’s glass production was folded into Iittala; production later moved to Iittala’s factory in Hämeenlinna. The series grew into hundreds of species and limited annual editions, each hand-blown and never entirely identical to the last — a result, Toikka said, of trusting “accidents and misunderstandings” over precision.

Toikka also designed stage and costume work for Finnish theatre and opera, and taught as professor at Stockholm’s Konstfack from 1990 to 1993 and later as visiting professor at the University of Sunderland in the UK. His honours include the Pro Finlandia Medal, the Kaj Franck Design Prize and Sweden’s Prins Eugen Medal.

He died in 2019, three years after the Birds by Toikka series marked its 25th year in continuous production. In 2021, Iittala released a posthumous collection drawn from sketches found in his archive, extending a body of work still produced today.

Oiva Toikka — Finnish Glass Artist Behind Birds by Toikka

Designs by Oiva Toikka

The Birds by Toikka Annual Bird 2026

Helsinki Design Week 2025

New additions to the Tundra collection designed by Oiva Toikka – iittala

The new Snow Castle glass sculptures designed by Oiva Toikka – iittala

Iittala Re-introduces Tundra Glassware by Oiva Toikka

The curious mind of Oiva Toikka

R.I.P Oiva Toikka 1931 – 2019

Aarre Wall Art – iittala

Kvällsseminarium om Oiva Toikka och finskt glas

Hello Oiva Toikka! A Greeting from Sweden 2012

Birds a collection of glass by Matti Klenell for iittala

WorkShop with Signe Persson-Melin, Oiva Toikka, Kenneth Williamsson