Paris. A century of Danish ceramics at the Maison du Danemark

From November 29 to March 3, Maison du Danemark will be opening its doors to a retrospective bringing together over 500 pieces from the most important danish artists from the 1880s to the 1990s. Ceramic art appeared in Denmark in the end of 19th century with Thorvald Bindesbøll and Niels Hansen Jacobsen, who were inspired by Japanese ceramics through French art nouveau in leaving the glazes run freely with no borders.

The “Scandinavian modern” style as we know it originates from the clean, simple and linear ceramic utility objects’s design created in the 1890s by factories like the Danish Royal Porcelain and Bing & Grøndahl, subsequently merged in in 1987 in “Royal Copenhagen”.

The 1920s’ “studio ceramics”, made famous all over the world by Saxbo, see ceramists dedicating themselves to working upon the strong basis of traditional Nordic craftsmanship. From the ‘30s to the ‘50s, this art evolves in two different directions: the more experimental one by modernist artists as Erik Nyholm and Asger Jorn and the more traditional one by Gutte Eriksen, which established mainly in Jutland. If lighter and thinner objects with a more sober and frugal style catch on the island of Zealand and around Copenhagen with Bodil Manz, Alev Siesbye and Beate Andersen, the small island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea, becomes a prestigious hub for apprentices from all over the country.

Latest ceramists’ research, from the glistening and magmatic sculptures by Christina Schou Christensen and Bente Skjøttgaard to the most geometric works by Karen Bennicke and Steen Ibsen, talks about international interaction and materiality all the applied arts seem to come back to.