Barbro Nilsson
Barbro Nilsson excelled at combining colour and form, and the range of weaving techniques she drew on makes her work unique among the Scandinavian textile designers of the twentieth century.
Her carpets took shape at the weaving studio of MƤrta MƄƄs-Fjetterstrƶm, where she created new patterns and tested one technique against another. She died in 1983, remembered as one of the most accomplished textile designers of the twentieth century.
Biography
Nilsson began her education in weaving and textile design at the age of fourteen, at the Brunssons VƤvskola founded by Johanna Brunsson in 1843. She continued at the Tekniska Skolan, the technical academy in Stockholm, where she developed her skills as a weaver further.
She became the right hand of the Swedish textile designer MƤrta MƄƄs-Fjetterstrƶm (1873-1941), who had founded her weaving studio in BƄstad in 1919. In 1928 Nilsson married the sculptor Robert Nilsson (1894-1980), with whom she collaborated on numerous tapestries.
Models and collaborations
At the MƄƄs-Fjetterstrƶm studio Nilsson created new carpet patterns and experimented with technique, among them the traditional Swedish hand-knotted flossa in relief, flat weave and knotted pile. She introduced the relief technique to the studio herself in 1942.
Knotting in relief allowed for more liberated and expressive forms than the traditional flat weave techniques. As with all her designs, Nilsson wove her initials, 'B N', and AB MMF, for AB MƤrta MƄƄs-Fjetterstrƶm, into the edge of the carpet.