Fiske ved gjeldens hav (Fishing in the Sea of Debt), 1933 Tapestry woven in wool and linen, 145 × 185 cm

The great economic crisis that and nose barely above the surface of characterized the early 1930s also the water. The fish depicted in front struck Scandinavia. Industrial of him can no longer provide him production fell, and unemployment with enough income to support him- figures rose dramatically. In Nor- self. On land, a man lies dead on way, the worst year of the crisis was the ground. A doctor attending to his 1933. Many were devastated by body greedily snatches one last coin. over­whelming debt, and the many To the left, the banking commis- fishermen in Ørlandet, where sioner’s wife sits at an amply laden Hannah and Hans Ryggen lived, table observing the scene, seemingly were among the hardest hit. unmoved by the tragedy that is un- That same year, Ryggen wove Fishing folding in front of her. in the Sea of Debt. The tapestry In Fishing in the Sea of Debt, Ryggen depicts the banks’ debt collectors revives the mediaeval way of com- fishing in the bloody waters of finan- posing in color fields, while also draw- cial ruin. A boat has just capsized, ing on modernist painting and her and three adults and two children own skills as a painter. She also, in her are floating in the sea. One of the men characteristic and expressionistic is struggling to keep the two small way, includes aspects of her private children’s heads above water, while life in her treatment of public issues. the woman to the right has already Ryggen had personally experienced drowned; her body is sinking to the having the last of her egg money bottom. The woman’s chickens, taken by the mortgage commissioner, her only source of income, have been so she knew what it felt like to be sold to meet interest payments. burdened by debt. The man to her left has his mouth

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Vi og våre dyr (Us and Our Animals), 1934 Tapestry woven in wool and linen, 187.5 × 491 cm

The Industrial Revolution had enor- Ryggen was very fond of the animals family, the work questions a funda­ mous consequences for both urban and considered them part of the mental aspect of humanity’s exis- development and living conditions, family. She was in torment whenever tence: namely, our relationship and it fundamentally altered the way one of them had to be slaughtered, to nature and how to subsist from it human beings related to nature as we see depicted in the middle sec- without doing harm. Hannah Ryggen’s and the production of objects. When tion, where a headless goose wanders respect for and love of nature was Hannah Ryggen wove Fiske ved aimlessly in front of the dinner table. all-encompassing. Today, the self- gjeldens hav (Fishing in the Sea of Both Fishing in the Sea of Debt and sustainability of nature’s ecosystems Debt) in 1933, in solidarity with debt- Us and Our Animals are experience- is under massive attack, and the laden workers, it was an overt poli­ based works. The former is explicitly precarious situation has sparked re- tical act. The following year she wove political, but Us and Our Animals also newed interest in the eco-philo- the monumental Us and Our Animals, conveys a political message, albeit ­sophi­cal themes and ideas behind which portrays the Ryggen family somewhat less emphatically: By the- Us and Our Animals. on their farm with their animals. maticizing the core conditions of the

36 37 Drømmedød (Death of Dreams), 1936 Tapestry woven in wool and linen, 235 × 273 cm

The motivation for Death of Dreams Ossietzky is behind bars, handcuffed. was the case of Carl von Ossietzky, To his right, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann a German writer and pacifist. As inter- Göring, and Adolf Hitler form a national affairs editor for the news- triumvirate, supported by swastikas. paper Berliner Volks-Zeitung, Ossietzky Their faces and hands are woven disclosed the German military’s plans in an intense shade of purple with for a coup at the beginning of the ­traces of crimson. Goebbels clasps his 1920s. In 1931, by which time he had hands around the throat of a prisoner become editor of Die Weltbühne, who hangs helplessly in his grip. Ossietzky was indicted on charges of On the right is another group, this one treason and espionage, and sentenced behind bars. The main person here to eighteen months in prison for his is Albert Einstein, standing with a disclosure of Germany’s re-armament violin in his hand. Einstein was a prom- efforts, a breach of the Treaty of Ver- inent opponent of the Third Reich, sailles. He was arrested again on and as early as 1933 he renounced his charges of treason the day after German citizenship in protest against the Reichstag fire in Berlin in 1933 and the ­Nazis’ persecution of the Jews. died in prison in 1938, the same year In front of this group the bars of the as Liselotte Herrmann (whom Ryggen cell are broken in places. The area also portrayed, see pp. 40/41). below the figures is restricted to two Ossietzky was a polarizing political main colors: brown and gray. The symbol in Norway. Ryggen completed ornamentation, with its seemingly Death of Dreams in May 1936. It was neutral yet highly disciplined and exhibited soon thereafter and caused repetitive geometric forms, is extre­ a sensation. This was a period during mely effective. Swastikas emerge which cultural statements were and dissolve, depending on whether largely judged according to political one looks at the light gray or the orientation. The tapestry was both a brown. The legs and feet of the life- commentary in the context of the less prisoner in Goebbels’ clutch hang ongoing debate and a personal opin- over the lower field, and the gray ion about how the world would look prison uniform melds with the gray under Nazi control. Ryggen wrote: of the ­ornamentation. “Woven in the year 1936, three years after Hitler came to power. I called 1 Exhibition card written by Hannah it ‘Death of Dreams’ because now all Ryggen in 1946. Archives of Designmuseet, dreams would die.” 1 Copenhagen.

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Liselotte Herrmann halshuggen (Liselotte Herrmann Decapitated), 1938 Tapestry woven in wool and linen, 187.1 × 154 cm

Liselotte Herrmann was politically photograph printed in the Norwegian early Christian decorative traditions, active in the Red Student League newspaper Dagbladet on March 5, or the more modern photo report- (Roter Studentenbund) and was a 1938. Yet the path from happiness to age from this time. The subject is member of the Communist Party (KPD) imprisonment was very short, visual­ clearly inspired by the classical motif in Germany. In 1933 she signed a ized by a single footprint in the of the Madonna in the rose garden. manifesto ‘Defence of Democratic direction of the cell. She was impris- The development of events can be Rights and Freedoms,’ and as a result oned for nineteen months before her read in a progression that moves from was expelled from university. In case was heard by a so-called People’s left to right, and from top to bottom: 1934 she gave birth to a son, Walter. Court (Volksgerichtshof), during first the scene with mother and child, She continued to work illegally which time her son Walter lived with then the red-hued executioner in against the Nazis, and on December 7, his grandparents. In 1937 Hermann the upper right corner, to the blood- 1935, she was arrested for treason. was sentenced to death. When she red footprint in the lower part of Despite being tortured, Hermann asked to say goodbye to her son, her the weaving, and lastly to the prison disclosed no information and was request was refused; instead, accord- cell where Hermann clasps baby classi­fied as Unverbesserliche ing to the newspapers, the prison clothes spun from soft geiteragg, a (incorrigible). guards threw Walter’s clothes into goat fibre Ryggen had not used In Ryggen’s tapestry we see Herrmann her cell. Despite intense international before, nor would again. The cruci- seated with her child on her lap protest Liselotte Herrmann was guil- form structure provides a taut in an idyllic garden-like setting. The lotined on June 20, 1938. composition that functions extremely way in which she is holding the child In this tapestry, the tragedy unfolds well against the rich coloration. is almost identical to her pose in a in succession, as in folk art weavings,

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6. oktober 1942 (6 October 1942), 1943 Tapestry woven in wool and linen, 175 × 419.5 cm

42 43 6. oktober 1942 (6 October 1942) Detail

When Norway was occupied by the camps. Above them, Hitler, with Nazis in April 1940, Ørlandet, the a pistol in each hand, floats like an region where the Ryggens lived, was omnipresent devil. The shots he chosen as the location for a new fires strike Gleditsch. Ryggen ridicules airstrip and base. Large tracts of agri­- Hitler by depicting him with oak cultural land were destroyed, while leaves issuing from his anus. She also at the same time the local population denigrates the Norwegian writer increased dramatically due to both Knut Hamsun, a Nazi sympathizer, the military facilities and the large and the Norwegian Prime Minister prison camps established there. The Vidkun Quisling, set up by the Ger- Ryggen family witnessed a great deal man occupiers, who are portrayed as of suffering. pitiful black birds. In 6 October 1942 we see how Hannah The scene to the right expresses the Ryggen is able to organize a variety Ryggen family’s desire to flee. of events, references, and inner imag­ They are sitting in a boat that is as es within a single composition. To black as death but surrounded the left, tragedy takes place as if on by red roses. Three sinister crimson a stage. The actor, theater director, heads float above them. The face and resistance member Henry Gle­ in the middle bears a strong likeness ditsch, in costume for the role of Doc- to Terboven’s, and the one to the tor Relling in Ibsen’s Vildanden (The right resembles Jonas Lie, the Nor­ Wild Duck), lies in his wife’s arms wegian chief of police under Terboven after being shot. Gleditsch was among who authorized death sentences those singled out by Reich Commis- against ­Norwegians during the war. sioner Josef Terboven for execution as The face to the left could be the “propitiatory sacrifices,” and his SS officer Gerhard Flesch. This trio execution took place the day before echoes that of Hitler, Göring, and the premiere of the play. Synnøve Goebbels in Drømmedød (Death of Gleditsch, also an actor in the play Dreams, pp. 38/39). and depicted in costume, kneels by her The tapestry’s mid-section was the husband’s side. Their positions are last to be woven, as is noticeable evocative of a pietà, and the reference from a purely compositional perspec- is intensified by the presence of tive. Ryggen felt that a measure a naked man bound to a post behind of red was called for to balance the them. The man is not a Christ sections on the left and right. figure, however, but a Serbian prisoner Thus, in the middle panel, a stalwart of war whom Ryggen personally Winston Churchill stands guard witnes­sed being tortured and exe- over his country in an orange-red cuted at one of the concentration fortress tower.

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