Gerda Henning née Heydorn (March 2, 1891 – June 26, 1951) was a Danish weaver, textile designer and educator.

Biography

Born Gerda Heydorn in Fredriksberg, Denmark, she was the daughter of a grocer. From 1910 to 1917 she worked as a

china painter China painting, or porcelain painting, is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcel ...

in a porcelain factory. It was there that she met Danish sculptor

Gerhard Henning Gerhard Henning (27 May 1880 – 16 September 1967) was a Swedish-Danish sculptor. While working at the Royal Danish Porcelain Factory, he designed a number of delicately decorated figurines. He is however remembered above all for his statues c ...

, whom she married and with whom she occasionally collaborated. From china painting, Henning moved into embroidery and thence into the production of silk textiles inspired by European folk art. In 1922, she founded her own weaving studio, and in 1928 she started teaching at (and later ran) the textile department at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here and in her own studio she trained a generation of textile artists and designers who became influential in the development of the

Danish modern Danish modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based ...

style, including Lis Ahlmann, Vibeke Klint, Ea Koch, and John Kristian Becker. Henning became known for reviving the country's tradition of handwoven rugs and introducing a fashion for natural-fiber rugs. She collaborated with noted furniture designers such as

Kaare Klint Kaare Klint (15 December 1888 – 28 March 1954) was a Danish architect and furniture designer, known as the father of modern Danish furniture design. Style was epitomized by clean, pure lines, use of the best materials of his time and super ...

and

Mogens Koch Mogens Koch (2 March 1898 – 16 September 1992) was a Danish architect and furniture designer and, from 1950 to 1968, a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Early life and education Mogens Koch was Koch in the Frederiksberg di ...

, and she was commissioned to make textiles for

Copenhagen City Hall Copenhagen City Hall ( da, Københavns Rådhus) is the headquarters of the Copenhagen City Council as well as the Lord mayor of the Copenhagen Municipality, Denmark. The building is situated on City Hall Square in central Copenhagen. Architect ...

. In 1929 and again in 1936 she had solo shows at the Danish Museum of Art & Design, which today holds some of her work. She died in Copenhagen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henning, Gerda 1891 births 1951 deaths Danish women artisans Danish women designers Danish textile designers Danish weavers 20th-century Danish artisans Women textile artists Danish embroiderers