Elias Svedberg is one of those many talented Swedisch designers that made scandinavian design known and appreciated far beyond scandinavia. As a designer he is not all that well known because much of his work was pre-war (he was born in 1913) and most of his furniture was either project specific or made for the furniture division of NK (AB Nordiska Kompaniet) an influencial department store chain in Sweden. NK's reputation was such that they did not "need" to promote the fame of their designers. In spite of that both Svedberg and the very talented textile designer Astrid Sampe became known figures in the scandinavian design world. Svedberg was the son of a Nobel price winner in Chemistry and one of the important figures in the development of rubber and plastic research in Sweden: Theodor Svedberg. Creativity must have been part of the genetic make up because the Nobel price winner was a fairly good painter. Elias (also his grand-father's name) Svedberg's contribution to making scandinavian design well known came from designing a number of pre-war exhibitions in Paris, New York, etc. Later on he contributed by being member of the board of the famous Svenska Slöjdföreningen, the oldest crafts and design promoting organisation in the world. His history with NK evolved from design into marketing and in 1962 he became NK's sales director. He was one of those early exemples of designers that studied and worked on both sides of the atlantic, but his first education was with the legendary Carl Malmsten, an important figure in Swedisch furniture design and maybe even more so in education. The school he founded still attracts young people that want to combine design with the highest levels of craftmanship in furniture making and a few other disciplines.