Viola Hildegard Gråsten (born Viola Hildegard Forsberg) (18 November 1910 – 20 October 1994) was a Swedish textile designer.[1][2][3]
Gråsten was born in Keuruu in Häme, Finland and was brought up as a foster daughter by the Finnish Finance Minister, Ernst Gråsten. She studied for four years at the Central School of Crafts in Helsinki until 1936, after which she worked as a designer at the Friends of Finnish Handicraft. In 1944, because of wartime yarn shortages in Finland, she moved to Sweden and designed shaggy rugs for Textiles & Interiors in Stockholm. A year later she took a post at the NK Textile Studio, where she began to design patterns for textiles and made a reputation for her colourful geometric designs. In 1956 she became artistic director of fashion textiles at Mölnlycke Weavers, where she stayed until her retirement in 1973.[4][5]
