ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reconsiders the career of pioneering Icelandic painter and textile artist Julíana Sveinsdottir. It begins with Shulamith Behr’s tracing of the groundbreaking, all-female exhibition of works by German Expressionist Gabriele Münter and the Swedish painters Sigrid Hjerten and Malin Gyllinstierna at Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm in 1917. The book uncovers a formerly unexplored and unexpected strategy the abstract Danish painter Franciska Clausen engaged in while she was part of the Parisian group Cercle et Carre. It presents the powerful work of the Swedish-born Norwegian weaver Hannah Ryggen, whose 1935 tapestry Ethiopia, and its explicit political critique of fascism, was censured when it was shown in the Norwegian pavilion at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris.
