Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume 23 The Swedish Glass Poet Edward Hald s Private Archive Emilia Ström, Archives and Library
Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, is published with generous support from the Friends of the Nationalmuseum. Nationalmuseum collaborates with Svenska Dagbladet and Grand Hôtel Stockholm. We would also like to thank FCB Fältman & Malmén. Cover Illustration Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783 1853), Danish. Ciociara Portrait of a Roman Country Girl, 1816. Oil on canvas, 52 x 46.5 cm. Purchase: Wiros Fund. NM 7334. Publisher Berndt Arell, Director General Editor Ludvig Florén and Magnus Olausson Editorial Committee Janna Herder, Linda Hinners, Merit Laine, Lena Munther, Magnus Olausson, Martin Olin, Maria Perers and Lidia Westerberg Olofsson Photographs Nationalmuseum Photographic Studio/ Linn Ahlgren, Bodil Beckman, Erik Cornelius, Anna Danielsson, Cecilia Heisser, Sofia Persson, Per-Åke Persson and Hans Thorwid Picture Editor Rikard Nordström Photo Credits Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen (Fig. 5, p. 21. Fig. 1, p. 36) Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Amsterdam (Fig. 2, p. 32) Trustees of the British Museum, London (Fig. 3, p. 33. Fig. 6, p. 38) The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (Fig. 2, p. 36) The National Library of Sweden, Stockholm (Fig. 4, p. 38. Fig. 21, p. 211. Fig. 28, p. 215) Alte Nationalgallerie, Berlin (Fig. 2, p. 40) Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (Fig. 3, p. 41) Neue Pinakothek, Munich (Fig. 5, p. 43) The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (Fig. 4, p. 109. Fig. 32 33, p. 217) The Matthiesen Gallery, London (Fig. 1, p. 108) The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Fig. 2, p. 122) Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis (Fig. 3, p. 123) Robilant + Voena (Fig. 4, p. 124) The Swedish National Archives, Stockholm (Fig. 3, p. 204) The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Photo: Joshua Ferdinand (Fig. 4, p. 205) Musée du Louvre, Paris. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY (Fig. 5, p. 205) Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (Fig. 8, p. 207) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty s Open Content Program (Fig. 10, p. 208. Fig. 30, p. 216) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Fig. 11, p. 208) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Fig. 18, p. 210. Fig. 23, p. 212. Fig. 31, p. 216) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (Fig. 24, p. 213. Fig. 26, p. 214) Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. John Herron Fund. (Fig. 25, p. 213) Stockholms auktionsverk (Fig. 8, p. 136) Graphic Design BIGG Layout Agneta Bervokk Translation and Language Editing Gabriella Berggren, William Jewson, David Jones and Martin Naylor Publishing Ludvig Florén, Magnus Olausson (Editors) and Ingrid Lindell (Publications Manager) Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum is published annually and contains articles on the history and theory of art relating to the collections of the Nationalmuseum. Nationalmuseum Box 16176 SE 103 24 Stockholm, Sweden www.nationalmuseum.se Nationalmuseum, the authors and the owners of the reproduced works ISSN 2001-9238 4
acqui s i ti ons / the s w e d i sh g l ass p o e t e dwa r d h a l d s p r i vat e a rc h i v e The Swedish Glass Poet Edward Hald s Private Archive Emilia Ström Archives and Library In 2014, the Nationalmuseum received Edward Hald s private archive as a gift from the artist s son, the illustrator Niels Christian (Fibben) Hald (b. 1933). Edward Hald (1883 1980), a pioneer in Swedish art industry, is one of Sweden s foremost and internationally best-known glass artists. When the donation was made, his estate, filling some four metres of shelf space, included a mixture of private papers and professional records. The process of arranging and describing in the archival management software Visual Archive was completed in June 2016. The entire material now comprises 33 volumes. Our ambition with the processing was to highlight Hald s multifaceted practice, and also, as far as possible, to preserve the context of the documents.1 Edward Hald was born in Stockholm. In 1903, he began studying at a business school in Leipzig, but switched to architecture at the University of Technology in Dresden in 1905. In 1906, he decided to devote himself entirely to drawing and painting. The same year, he embarked on private lessons in drawing in Dresden He also studied at the Swedish artist federation Konstnärsförbundet s school Fig. 1 Edward Hald (1883 1980), Alice Rooswelt, alias Else Lisack, Dresden 1906. Pencil on paper, 28 x 21 cm. Nationalmuseum, Edward Hald s private archive EH 2:8. 127
acqui s i ti ons / the s w e d i sh g l ass p o e t e dwa r d h a l d s p r i vat e a rc h i v e in Stockholm in 1908, and the so-called Matisse Academy in Paris in 1908. In 1917, he was employed as a designer first at Rörstrand and then at Orrefors glassworks. From 1918, he was also affiliated to the Sandvik glassworks. Hald s international break-through came in 1925, with the World Fair in Paris. In 1933 45, he was the CEO of Orrefors, during a period when Swedish art glass and utility glass became globally successful, as exponents of more beautiful everyday goods. As a corporate executive, Hald could combine his artistic talent with his marketing skills, his business acumen with his knowledge of glass technology. In 1940, he resumed painting, and from 1947 he was artistic coordinator and advisor for Orrefors glassworks.2 Three of the archive volumes contain Hald s correspondence, some 400 letters from various people from 1892 to 1980, and a large collection of his draft letters. The material is indicative of the artist s enormous international network.3 One volume in the archive consists of material relating to 42 exhibitions between 1910 and 1984.4 In eight of the volumes we find Edward Hald s work and diary notes, and a draft version of his unfinished memoirs. The diaries, which he kept more or less regularly throughout his life, provide some degree of structure and regular rhythm to the artist s largely spontaneous approach to work. In the diaries he writes about everything from private musings to work-related ideas. Notes on art, literature, philosophy, architecture and design are interspersed with thoughts on existential issues and events in his life. Here, we also find examples of his studio poetry, as he called it.5 One of his poems, dated 1917, combines words and wordlessness, great and small, body and soul. Fig. 2 Edward Hald (1883 1980), The Spanish Lady. Produced by Orrefors glasbruk, 1923. Engraved crystal glass, 29.5 cm (h). Nationalmuseum, NMK 41/1923. 128 A room A sealed room in the universe A world of its own With walls stretching skyward
acqui s i ti ons / the s w e d i sh g l ass p o e t e dwa r d h a l d s p r i vat e a rc h i v e Fig. 3 Edward Hald (1883 1980), Draft for a Lampshade of Glass, 1933. Pencil on paper, 32 x 24 cm. Nationalmuseum, Edward Hald s private archive EH 2:9. And a ceiling like a peaceful and mighty head And windows gazing at big eyes Out over the wide world And furniture like thoughts and ideas Both big heavy, and small and capricious Oh microcosm in the big world Oh silent abode of my body and soul May the hymn resound in the dome of your head Oh creation of a thousand generations labour6 The artist s free drawings and sketches, and sketches and drafts for craft objects and design fill nine volumes. This material Fig. 4 Edward Hald (1883 1980), Sketch for a Net Drapery with Glass Fishes, 1971(?). Pencil, watercolor and crayons on paper, 30 x 21 cm. Nationalmuseum, Edward Hald s private archive EH 2:9. includes 60 bound sketchbooks, most of which are from the years 1905 40. The years 1905 06, when he was studying in Germany, are especially well-represented, with a large number of draft portraits. It also contains more than 500 sketches and drafts for craft objects and designs on loose sheets.7 In the archive s pictorial material, one vivid motif occurs a remarkable number of times. It consists of a grid pattern that seems to link all the artist s life phases and his diverse forms of expression. During his 129 architectural studies in Dresden in 1906, it consists of the millimeter grid paper on which he drew columns and capitals, only to reappear that year in a portrait drawing in the form of a veil enveloping the face of the depicted woman.8 (Fig. 1). The checked mantilla lace also covers the face of Spanish Lady, whose head forms the bowl of the glass cup from 1923, which is in the Nationalmuseum collection.9 (Fig. 2). The grid also features in one of Hald s drafts for a glass lampshade from 1933,
acquisitions/the swedish glass poet edward hald s private archive the year he became CEO of Orrefors. The motif is best known from his Starry Sky globe in the Nationalmuseum collection. 10 The map of the firmament was drawn by mankind to help us navigate the infinite and incomprehensible. 11 In this drawing, the artist has depicted himself standing in a laboratory, as a scientist and visionary. Holding a large test tube with both hands, he gazes at the heavenly canopy. Like the lampshade, his sunglasses protect him from the light, while also enabling him to see (Fig. 3). The grid recurs again and again, in myriad sketches and engraved glass objects (Fig. 4). It is seen on Grail Glass as abstract patterns, and as fishnet on Fish Grail. It appears again in Hald s late pictorial improvisations, where fish are caught in a fishnet, as in his Jeu de Raclure from 1967. 12 It turns up again in Hald s 90th Anniversary Vase from 1973, in a cut decor consisting of nines and zeros in a net pattern. 13 A net can both cover us and leave us naked, it both holds together and separates, in the same way as glass, which can be both transparent and reflective. The grid links and structures randomness and infinity, it unites emotions and art with reason and science. In Hald s works, the boundaries dissolve between art and crafts, between visual art and design. Edward Hald s private archive reflects practically every phase of his long life, and gives an overall picture of his interdisciplinary practice. The material complements the Nationalmuseum s already capacious collection of crafts and design archives. This unique resource is also a valuable addition to the records on Hald in the artist federation Konstnärsförbundet s archive, which has long been a part of the Nationalmuseum s collection. 14 3. EH3:1 EH3:3 Edward Hald s private archive, Enskilda arkiv (The artists archives), Nationalmuseum s archives. 4. Ibid., EH4:2. 5. Ibid., EH1:5 EH1:12. 6. Ibid., Diary entry 16 January, 1917, EH1:12. 7. Ibid., EH2:1 EH2:10. 8. Ibid., In the diary marked: (Mem) 1970 1975 (DB), he writes: Portrait art was actually my first artistic interest, although I never pursued it, EH1:11. 9. NMK 41/1923. 10. NMK 142A/1930. 11. Aby Warburg 1923, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, in Donald Preziosi, The Art of Art History, A Critical Anthology, Oxford 2009, s. 182. 12. Edward Hald, Konstnärshuset 24 August 6 September, 1967, exh. cat., Stockholm 1967. 13. Edward Hald, Nationalmuseum exh.cat. 1983, No 301, p 130, The first 90th Anniversary Vase was presented as a gift to King Gustav VI Adolf 1973, the year when both Hald and the King filled 90 years. 14. F10:1, The Swedish Artist Federation s archive, Enskilda arkiv (The artists archives), Nationalmuseum s archive. Notes: 1. Martin Grass, Att ordna och förteckna personarkiv, Lecture at the Swedish Association of Archivists theme day on private archives, 1998. 2. Arthur Hald, Biografi, Edward Hald, målare konstindustripionjär, in Edward Hald, Nationalmuseum exh. cat., 1983, pp. 8 19. 130