Ingrid Lunnan Nødseth and Solveig Lønmo from the National Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (NKIM for its abbreviation in Norwegian) in Trondheim efforts to professionalize textile research and expand knowledge on Hannah Ryggen’s legacy in visual and contemporary art. Ryggen lived and worked in Ørlandet, Trøndelag1, and was a prominent figure in Trondheim’s art and social scenes.
I first saw Ryggen’s work in 2017 and revisited it a year later at NKIM’s 125th-anniversary exhibition, which included four artists’ tapestries and an article about Ryggen’s collection.2 As a result, I gained more understanding of her legacy and the significance of her work. Due to the continued interest in her work and the lens of feminism in art history, this article aims to shed light on Hannah Ryggen’s contributions to contemporary art outside the Nordic region. For that, I will briefly introduce Ryggen’s life and work to share later some insights and reflections from a feministic perspective.
THE ARTIST: A SHORT INTRODUCTION
Born in Malmö, Sweden, in 1894 as Hanna Josefina Maria Jönson, Ryggen grew up in a working-class family. Her first studio was in her grandmother’s cottage, where she learned to spin and dye yarns.3 Initially pursuing a career as a teacher, she found it unsatisfying and decided to follow her artistic interests instead. In 1922, she studied privately in Lund, Sweden, and classical art immersion afterward in Dresden, Germany. After marrying the Norwegian artist Hans Ryggen in 1923, they moved to Ørlandet, Norway. Hannah continued weaving4 which eventually became her primary artistic medium. Her technique involved simultaneously using her arms and legs on a loom adapted and built by her husband. 5
Norwegian weaving and domestic industry traditions had professionalized at that time, giving women training and economic independence outside the home.6 However, due to the couple’s limited resources, Hannah had to learn how to spin and dye wool yarn from scratch, which fit with their communist self-sufficiency and her desire to stay close to nature.7
Her first large tapestry, “The Adulteress,” was completed in 1926, based on a biblical text about a woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus by scribes and Pharisees. Each person depicted had distinct characteristics that demonstrated the artist’s compassion and empathy for the underdog and her criticism of those in positions of authority.8
Hannah Ryggen struggled to gain recognition while her husband was already a well-known painter because independent female artists were not typical by then.9 Her first exhibition was at the Nidaros (Trondheim) Jubilee Exhibition in 1930, where she participated in five tapestries using different techniques. During this period, she received criticism, but the encouragement came from those who perceived artistic value in her work. As a result of her experiences, she began to use her weaving as a medium to express herself and depict her life using colors and physical expressions to convey a wide range of emotions.
Her first political tapestry depicted the 1935 Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Ryggen continued as one of the few artists to use her motives to respond to local and international events despite her family’s WWII struggles.10 She also depicted people’s reactions to these events, sometimes as a form of criticism. Similarly, she portrayed themes like Nazism in Germany and Norway, the Spanish Civil War, social and political activism, the Vietnam War, and other topics, demonstrating her interest and commitment to social and political issues.
However, Ryggen’s works are more than just records of her time. Instead, the scenes express her feelings and spontaneous reactions, like in “Ethiopia,” in which she tries to convey a sense of justice, whether positive or negative.11 In addition, the artist knew about Norwegian and Swedish women’s social conditions, and her tapestries reflect women’s lives and experiences through the eyes of an immigrant woman.
She was gaining more space in the art scene of that time. One of the breaking points of her career was when her tapestry “Use of Hands” (1949) was purchased by the Norwegian Gallery of Art in Oslo in 1953, dissolving an institutional barrier between craft and art.12 In 1955-1956, approximately twenty-two tapestries were loaned to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for a traveling exhibition in North America, where her work got enthusiastic approval.13 Years later, Ryggen received the Cross of Knighthood of the Royal St. Olav’s Order from Norway in 1965. Her tapestries have recently received renewed national and international attention, with exhibitions in Oxford, Kassel, Madrid, Oslo, Malmö, Frankfurt, and dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel and Trondheim.14
Her weaving technique without sketching, relying solely on her memory and creativity, helped her create a unique figurative expressionist style influenced by medieval icons, Norwegian textiles, and contemporary Norwegian artists such as Arne Ekeland.15 Before her death, she donated over 100 pieces to Trondheim’s two leading museums, including NKIM. One of the current research goals is to get an overview of her production, observed Lønmo.16
Ryggen’s artistic processes were inextricably linked to her life and political beliefs and influenced by Norwegian rural development and communist ideals.17 Moreover, it can be possible to know more details and perspectives about her work, commented Lønmo.
FEMINISM AND ART HISTORY
Feminism is an approach with diverse interests and commitments that share common values and beliefs. Gender, race, class, and social and political contexts have all been addressed by feminists in art history. In the 1960s and the 1970s, second-wave feminists demanded equality in all areas, including the arts, emphasizing how the patriarchal system and sexist beliefs shaped female artists. Additionally, women’s art challenged norms by incorporating feminine art forms, such as textiles and embroidery,18 thereby criticizing Art History’s structural sexism.19
According to Lunnan Nødseth and Lønmo, textiles have traditionally been associated with women and are less researched than architecture, painting, and sculpture.20 However, studying textile art, which includes art made with textiles and art made about textiles,21 can also draw attention to the little-known hierarchy of different art forms and the hidden role of textiles in global visual culture, among other insights. Linda Nochlin, a seminal feminist art historian, proposed that to obtain a more accurate historical perspective, we must critically examine intellectual distortions about what is natural or not in disciplines or academic research.22
The feminist perspective can assist researchers in better understanding the social and ideological factors that shaped the work of female artists. Ryggen’s work as a feminist project can help to increase textile research competence in museums, following Lunna Nødseth. Thus, it is critical to highlight the ideologies that shaped women’s access to educational and occupational opportunities in Sweden in the early nineteenth century and the social expectations that governed women’s behavior in Norway and Sweden. Her motives are an opportunity to reflect on previous ideas about the fertility-beauty-power dynamic, sexuality, motherhood, and the emotional world. One feminist interpretation of her tapestries can help to discuss traditional female body representations and the social construction of masculinity. Situating these elements in their social and cultural contexts can help to understand them as conventions, eluding essentialistic explanations for her work. 23 24
Furthermore, some accounts have mentioned Hannah Ryggen’s challenging relationship with institutionalized art agents, primarily men. The rejection of female artists can be interpreted as how sexism and patriarchy denied access to the Norwegian and European institutional artistic scenes at the time. Ryggen’s lack of agency and participation in institutionalized art must be addressed in academic research not as an anecdote but as a form of exclusion.25
Hannah Ryggen’s art depicts women socially marginalized due to their sexuality, such as adulterers and single mothers. Her life and work show how society confided in women by imposing gender roles on them. Ryggen’s discourse and values, on the other hand, attempt to redeem them and make these marginalized groups visible. In this sense, acknowledging Ryggen’s social class and status at that time can highlight how artists’ struggles and lives have evolved.26 As a result, art became a field where ideologies and discourses could be seen and interacted with one another, which added dynamism to researching and comprehending her work.
Lønmo has emphasized previous efforts to move Ryggen’s work away from art and textile history to understand it in the context of visual and contemporary art. In this regard, discussing Ryggen’s legacy solely as a form of art risks undervaluing the diverse identities that her work can contain. It is critical reclaiming her pieces’ uniqueness in the face of mass production, a quality that the craft emphasizes. Furthermore, homogenizing and labeling her work as only art can jeopardize the ability of craft to empower individuals and groups in situations that would otherwise threaten and violate their quality of life.27
The craft’s strength lies in its smallness, attributed powerlessness, and harmless in the face of social and identity problems. Research can address the politics of the so-called “small things” as another way to understand power and ideology. By contrast, academic research can stimulate inquiry and help answer big questions that societies face today. However, the desire to answer these questions can erode and distort craft identity in the name of Grand narratives,29 privileging a more controlled discourse dominated by other values and standards proposed mainly by men. 30 31
To end, folk art and weaving were foundational for mediating nationalistic discourses through establishing decorative arts and design museums in Christiania (today, Oslo), Bergen, and Trondheim at the end of the nineteenth century.32 Nevertheless, this kind of museum’s nature can positively affect how textiles are mediated to the public today. In addition, rather than attempting to convey the pieces as another form of visual art, it is possible to give a more significant account of her work by focusing on the material, techniques, and craftiness. As a result, Ryggen’s work can be mediated as an example of how art and craft can intersect and reflect society’s values and discourses while also acknowledging the broader social and political contexts in which they were created.
CONCLUSION
This article wanted to give some insights from the feminist approach to Hannah Ryggen’s work and the social and cultural context in which she evolved as an artist. The intersectionality of gender, social status, and institutions shaped her career, and it is critical to recognize these factors when researching her legacy. Furthermore, we can prevent the distortion of her identity and the discourse surrounding her work by embracing the complexity of her narrative and discourse.
P.S. We thank NKIM and Siri Frøseth for their assistance with photos and information about Ryggen’s collection. All the credits are given.
It is worth noting that some of Ryggen’s works can now be seen at The Hannah Ryggen Center in Brekstad, Trøndelag. In addition, the “Hannah Ryggen Triennale” takes place every three years, creating a dialogue between Ryggen’s work and contemporary artists.
Furthermore, thanks to the National Council of Research funding, the Museums and Textiles in Trondheim project, MUTE, is underway. Lunnan Løndseth and Lønmo will work with Museums in South-Trøndelag (MIST in Norwegian), NTNU, and Bergen University to further our understanding of textiles’ role in visual culture.
Noter 1 Annemona Grand, “Trønderens Kunst Stilles ut Over Hele Verden. Nå Skal Den Forskes på,” Adressavisen, March 13, 2023. https://www.adressa.no/kultur/i/Ll9ejJ/troenderens-kunst-stilles-ut-over-hele-verden-naa-skal-den-forskes-paa
2 Solveig Lønmo ed., 125 Gjestander, Valg, Fortellinger / 125 Objects, Choices, Stories (Trondheim: Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, 2018), 5, 90-91, 104-111, 272-273.
3 Tore Gjelsvik, and Magni Moksnes Gjelsvik, The Tapestries of Hannah Ryggen (Trondheim: Lyngs bokhandel, 1999), 10. https://www.nb.no/items/e19567aed413f52b7cbc25348150cbe1?page=5&searchText=gjelsvik, tore
4 Weaving had a revival in Denmark and Sweden in 1900. For more context see: Randi Nygaard Lium, Tekstilkunst i Norge (Trondheim: Museumsforlaget, 2016), 109.
5 Gjelsvik and Gjelsvik, The Tapestries, 15, 17.
6 Nygaard, Tekstilkunst, 83-84.
7 Grand, “Trønderens.”
8 Gjelsvik and Gjelsvik, The Tapestries, 22.
9 Nygaard, Tekstilkunst, 83.
10 Danbolt, Gunnar; Flottorp,Vigdis; Brudevoll, Kari; Homlong, Beate and Thorbjørnsen, Kari. Norsk Kunsthistorie: Bilde Og Skulptur Frå Vikingtida til i Dag (Oslo: Samlaget, 2009), 309-312.
11 Gjelsvik and Gjelsvik, The Tapestries, 36.
12 Ibid., The Tapestries, 69.
13 Ibid., 77.
14 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum. “Hannah Ryggen-senteret.” Accessed 27 April 2023. https://nkim.no/hannah-ryggen-senteret
15 Ibid., 20, 33, 44.
16 Grand, “Trønderens.”
17 Hemmings, Jessica “Hannah Ryggen: Woven Histories.” Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture 17, no. 1 (2019): 46,48, https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2018.1453737.
18 Hatt, Michael and Klonk, Charlotte. “Feminism,” in Art history. A Critical Introduction to its Methods (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 145- 148.
19 Parker, Rozsika and Pollock, Griselda. Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology. (London: Routledge & Paul Kegan, 1981), xvii.
20 Grand, “Trønderes.”
21 Hemmings, Jessica “Material Meaning.” Wasafiri 25, no. 3 (2010): 38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2010.486251.
22 Nochlin, Linda “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, in Art and Sexual Politics, ed. Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 1.
23 Hatt and Klonk, Art History, 151.
24 Pollock, Griselda «Feminist Interventions in the History of Art” in Art History and its Methods, ed. Eric Fernie (London: Phaidon Press, 2001), 296.
25 Hatt and Klonk, Art History, 151.
26 Ibid., 155.
27 Hemmings,Jessica “Rereading and Revising: Acknowledging the Smallness (Sometimes) of Craft.” Craft research 9, no. 2 (2018): 273. https://doi.org/10.1386/CRRE.9.2.273_1.
28 Hemmings, Rereading, 274.
29 French literary theorist Jean-François Lyotard had this term to understand the “totalizing narratives or metadiscourses of modernity which have provided ideologies with a legitimating philosophy of history”. See: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095903493;jsessionid=E66BCC2BD541FF1035C50C54B74DE9A8
30 Hatt and Klonk, Art History, 153.
31 Pollock, Art History and, 296.
32 Nygaard, Tekstilkunst, 86.