Birger Carlstedt was born in Helsinki to businessman John Wilhelm Carlstedt and restaurateur Amanda Josefina Lindström. Carlstedt had an older sibling who died as a child and a younger brother, Knut Wilhelm. The two brothers are said to have been close. Knut was born in 1910 and died in the
Winter war. The family was a part of the
Swedish-speaking influential minority of
Finland, but
French and
German were also spoken in the household. Birger Carlstedt also learned
Finnish in school. The family was affluent, and Birger grew up in a household with valets. After John passed in 1913, Amanda continued to acquire and run restaurants in Helsinki until 1938. Birger Carlstedt studied at the
School of the Fine Arts Association of Finland and the
Central School of Applied Arts in
Helsinki. He also studied in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. With the support of rich parents, Carlstedt was able to travel around Europe and visit the
Bauhaus and
De Stijl groups to study their visual arts and architecture. Amanda Carlstedt was her son's paton for much of his life. As a student, Carlstedt already belonged to the relatively small group of artists who were constantly open to new influences and experimented with new forms of expression. He was influenced by
Cubism and
Surrealism and his style became increasingly
Non-figurative. While working as a painter after his studies, he also had his own interior design company. His most notable interior design was the Le Chat Doré cafe in Helsinki (1929), which was Parisian in style, with references to
Art Deco. The café was run by Carlstedt's mother Amanda. ==References==