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Swedish Modern Rare Ingrid Dessau Manhattan Skyline Tapestry, 1953

About the Item

Dessau was born in Svalöv, Sweden, a region known for its Skåne handicraft tradition, at a time when a previous generation of female artists had established Sweden as a center for innovative textile arts. She studied at the most illustrious centers of textile arts in Sweden. At age seventeen, young Ingrid Peterson entered the Konstfack, or University of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Stockholm, where she studied weaving and composition and mastered loom pattern-weaving and tapestry techniques. She then worked on an archival project documenting folk textiles in watercolor paintings for the Kristiandstad County Handicraft Association. Her education was rounded out with an internship under the great textile pioneer Barbro Nilsson at the renowned and trailblazing Märta Måås-Fjetterström’s workshop in Båstad. It is hard to imagine more solid foundations on which to begin a career in textiles. In the late 1940s she won travel scholarships to study folk crafts in America; this was when she met and married the Danish entrepreneur Kaj Dessau, who was working as the director of Georg Jensen in New York City. She then settled in New York with him. It seems that New York City had a beneficial effect on her as well as her husband, since she soon entered a period of intense productivity. Her professional breakthrough came in 1953 with her show at Galleri Moderne in Stockholm, and her most famous work, now on display at the National Museum of Sweden, is the 1953 tapestry Manhattan. This woven invocation of New York City at night is composed of a double row of skyscrapers with illuminated windows. The windows of the buildings woven in white wool are thinner than the ones woven with dark wool. Manhattan was originally not meant to be a wall hanging but a window hanging tapestry. When hung over a window, light comes stronger through the light windows of the tapestry, making them appear lit up. Currently one of the Manhattan tapestries she made was part of a museum show called Scandinavian Design & USA . The exhibition was produced by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum in association with Nationalmuseet, Oslo, and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. A book was made and the tapestry is in it. Literature - Tigerman Obniski (2020), Scandinavian design and the United States: 1890-1980, Los Angeles county museum of art - Helena Kåberg (2015) Ingrid Dessau Takes Manhattan: A Textile Pioneer Uniting Craft and Industry, The Journal of Modern Craft Exhibitions - Permanent Collection, Nationalmuseum (Sweden) - Scandinavian Design & USA – People, Encounters and Ideas, 1890–1980, Nationalmuseum (Sweden), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (USA), Milwaukee Art Museum (USA), Nasjonalmuseet (Finland)

Attributed to:

Ingrid Dessau (Maker)

Dimensions:

Height: 86.62 in (220 cm)Width: 57.09 in (145 cm)Depth: 57.09 in (145 cm)

Style:

Scandinavian Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Wool,Hand-Woven

Place of Origin:

Sweden

Period:

Mid-20th Century