The bard pays homage to his two muses: his wife and his football club
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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
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by an incoherent show that fails to question stereotypical assumptions about the Soviet Union
JOHN McINALLY welcomes a rigorous class analysis of the history and exploitation of sectarianism by the Scottish ruling elite
WILL STONE, JAMES WALSH and MARIA DUARTE review Souleymane’s Story, Sunlight, Good Fortune, and After The Hunt
ALEX HALL recommends an exhaustive investigation of the means by which the Starmer faction assassinated the left
DAVID MORGAN recommends a refreshingly inspiring novel that features encounters with some tremendous women
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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