The Bard stands with the Reformers of Peterloo, and their shared genius in teaching history with music and song
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A timeless weaver of defiance, retribution and wit
The celebration of universal human values in the tapestries of Hannah Ryggen still speak to us across the decades, says CHRISTINE LINDEY
SUE TURNER is fascinated by a book that researches who the largely immigrant workforce were that built the Empire State
MARIA DUARTE and MALC McGOOKIN review Sirat, The Testament of Ann Lee, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, and All You Need Is Kill
STEVE ANDREW recommends a Marxist analysis of the long chains of production that global corporations exploit
MARY CONWAY relishes the period detail but misses the drama in this unsatisfactory dramatisation of the subjugated life of George Eliot
IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a mainstream scholar to the ranks of left-wing critique of US foreign policy
PETER MASON is disappointed that the eponymous Count fails to put in an appearance
Hannah Ryggen: Woven Histories
Modern Art Oxford
BECAUSE she dared to challenge the entrenched categorisation of “high” and “low” art, the artist Hannah Ryggen (1894-1970) is little known outside Scandinavia.
By marrying the folk craft of weaving with the sociopolitical content of history painting — the pinnacle of the high art hierarchy — she so confounded critical assumptions that she was easily ignored.
Born in the Swedish city of Malmo to a cook and ex-sailor/labourer, Ryggen never lost her working-class consciousness. Aged 19, she became a school teacher and it was then that a friend, the school cleaner, introduced her to the pleasures of the folk art of weaving. At the same time, Ryggen studied art at night school where she learned academic principles and techniques.
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