When my husband and I visited Japan last month, I purposely did not make it a textile tour, nor a possible investigation into the influence of Japanese art on Frida Hansen. But of course Frida thoughts crept in.
In Tokyo we visited with Yuri Kimura, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. Over dinner I told Yuri about my ongoing research into the tapestry of Frida Hansen, and showed her some photos, including this rose rug design.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “If you hadn’t told me this was Norwegian, I would have thought it was Japanese. The choice of color of the soil and blue background is reminiscent of kabuki colors. If I didn’t know I would say it was a Japanese cherry blossom pattern.” I saw this Hiroshige print at MIA (the Minneapolis Institute of Art) before our trip to Japan, Suijin Grove and Massaki on the Sumida River, 1856. Certainly there are similarities in the colors and mood.
In my post-Japan trip post I mentioned visiting the exhibit Nihonga Avant-Garde: Kyoto 1948-1970 at the Kyoto City KYOCERE Museum of Art. I particularly loved a giant floral painting by Kojin Sawa, Lotus (1940).
It reminded me of a pillow design by Frida Hansen, I Rødt (1898), shown in this watercolor sketch held by the Nasjonalmuseet.
Shortly after that, I saw a rendition of the design woven by a friend from Bergen, Norway, Grete Vetås, posted on Facebook. What a beautiful job she did!
Greta’s tapestry is special for a couple of other reasons. She wove it using yarn that was dyed with natural dyes by her mother, and the colors she had were perfect. Frida Hansen would approve. And while Grete noted in her Facebook post that this was her first tapestry, that’s not quite true. She wove a beautiful “Frida rose” during my transparent tapestry workshop in Oslo last fall, also with the hand-dyed yarn she inherited from her mother.
