Art enters everyday life

Narrator: 

Frida Hansen grew up in a wealthy family in Stavanger and had ambitions to become an artist. But at the age of eighteen, she married a rich businessman and put her artistic dreams aside. Instead, Hansen found pleasure in travelling, says Anniken Thue, who has written books and curated exhibitions about Frida Hansen. 

Anniken Thue: 

What she did was to spend time in Paris. She was a seasoned traveller, and that wasn’t true of very many people at that time. But both her family and her husband were wealthy, so this was something they could do. But then came bankruptcy. 

Narrator: 

Necessity teaches a naked woman to spin yarn, as the Norwegian saying goes. In 1883, her family’s business collapsed, as did her husband’s, and they were suddenly left penniless. 

Anniken Thue: 

She ended up surviving by opening a small embroidery shop in Stavanger on the west coast of Norway. And at that time, many Norwegians had a keen interest in their national heritage. It wasn’t long before Norway gained full independence from Sweden in 1905. It was as though people were fighting for a Norwegian identity. But Frida Hansen was operating on a completely different track – she was a European. 

Narrator: 

Hansen set up a large weaving workshop in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania, now Oslo, where she developed a new technique for weaving what she called ‘transparencies’. These were semi-transparent woven curtains that were often hung in doorways.  

Anniken Thue: 

In her transparencies, she could play with switching between different visual effects within the same pattern. Against a dark background, the colours would dominate, while the motif could change completely when it was seen against the light. Then the dominant pattern would be made up of lines and spaces. 

Narrator: 

Hansen patented her new invention, and her transparency titled Margariter was a big hit at the Paris World Fair in 1900. At home in Norway, however, many people turned up their noses at her ‘un-Norwegian’ style.  

Anniken Thue: 

In many ways she was a true entrepreneur. She was fearless, probably because of her very particular social background – at one point she had been one of the richest women in Norway. 

If someone tried to say something that she thought was wrong, I can guarantee that she would snap back. And she was very clear that her work counted as art! 

Narrator: 

After some years, Hansen succeeded in shifting public opinion, boosting the status of woven tapestry as an artistic medium. In 1915, she was awarded the King’s Medal of Merit in Gold.