Ingrid Dessau: A Swedish Designer in New York
September 03, 2019
The FJ Hakimian collection has four carpets by the mid-twentieth century Swedish textile designer Ingrid Dessau. All of these works are sophisticated compositions by an artist with an exceptionally refined sense of color and design. Ingrid Dessau (née Peterson, 1923–2000) was a master of her craft whose works are beautiful expressions of a type of sophisticated modernism rooted in Swedish traditions. read more
Natural Abstractions: Brita Grahn
July 17, 2019
The FJ Hakimian Collection includes five works by Swedish designer Brita Grahn (1907–2013). Each composition is a restrained, intellectual abstraction that hints at the natural world as a source of inspiration. read more
Elsa Gullberg-Design Pioneer
June 13, 2019
Elsa Gullberg could be called the mother of Swedish Modern. She was an extraordinary figure, far ahead of her time as a designer, a textile innovator, and an entrepreneur. Born in Malmo in 1886 into a bourgeois family, she had wanted to be a doctor but because of her father’s early death she was forced to take another, more traditional path for a woman in her time. read more
ANDRÉ ARBUS
May 08, 2019
This usual and beautiful carpet was designed by the inimitable André Arbus, one of the most celebrated French designers of the twentieth century. His distinctive style blends the tradition of French neoclassicism with the bold modernism of second quarter of the century. In this carpet we see a truly characteristic work: intelligent and luxurious, with a bold, curvilinear design, charming details, and an audacious palette. read more
THE HOUSE THAT MӒRTA BUILT... 100th anniversary celebration
February 26, 2019
Märta Måås-Fjetterström (1873-1941), a trained Swedish Textile artist was bit of a revolutionary - her life story and the subsequent establishment of the MMF Workshop is legendary amongst Textile collector’s world over. Today when a public institution or a Hollywood movie star wants something out of the ordinary to rest their eyes on, then the choice is often an MMF rug. read more
Pioneers of Abstraction: Hilma af Klint and Sweden's Textile Arts
February 18, 2019
The Hilma af Klint show at the Guggenheim was without question the New York art exhibition of the past year. This turn-of-the-century Swedish painter created a truly radical body of work in an abstract mode that preceded the works of the painters considered the fathers of abstraction Mondrian, Kandinsky, and Malevich. read more
The Tuareg of the Sahara
January 24, 2019
The Tuareg tribe of North Africa have long captured the imaginations of outsiders. These people of the Sahara, sometimes called the “blue people,” are instantly recognizable as the quintessential desert warriors. Among the members of the tribe, it is the men, not the women, who are veiled. They wear visually striking and elegant indigo head wrappings that protect against the harsh climate and stain their skin. read more
Finnish Innovations: the Textile Works of Greta Skogster-Lehtinen
December 10, 2018
Greta Skogster-Lehtinen was ahead of her time both as a pioneer of Finnish textile art and as an entrepreneur. Her textile designs are full of warmth and strength; earthy and crafted of vernacular materials, they evoke the natural world of the ancient Finnish landscape in a dynamic and modern visual language. read more
A Certain Blue Enters Your Soul
November 28, 2018
Henri Matisse, whose quote above captures the magic and mystery of blue, speaks for all who adore this color. But although blue seems intrinsic to art and design, you may be surprised to know that for millennia this color didn’t, in a sense, exist. Although two of Earth’s most prominent features—the oceans and the sky—are blue, the world’s earliest texts, from any culture, make no reference to the color. read more
Oushak Carpets
November 14, 2018
As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century the western Anatolian town of Ushak was producing fine carpets and textiles for the imperial Ottoman court. These early carpets fused traditional Persian design elements from the neighboring Safavid empire with a new Ottoman Turkish sensibility that stressed geometry and abstract floral ornament over pictorial and figural representations. read more