Lin Utzon (born 21 May 1946) is a Danish designer who has created a wide variety of abstract decorative works from textiles to

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

both in Denmark and abroad.

Personal life and education

Born on 21 May 1946 in the

Frederiksberg Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is formally an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the City of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of ...

district of Copenhagen, Utzon spent her childhood in

Hellebæk Hellebæk is a town located on the coast five kilometres northwest of Helsingør, North Zealand, some 40 kilometres north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It has merged with the neighbouring community of Ålsgårde to form an urban area with a population o ...

, Denmark. When she was 15, she moved with her family to Australia where her father, architect

Jørn Utzon Jørn Oberg Utzon, , Hon. FAIA (; 9 April 191829 November 2008) was a Danish architect. He was most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia, completed in 1973. When it was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, Utzon ...

, was to embark on the construction of the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

. After attending classes in painting and sculpture at

East Sydney Technical College The National Art School (NAS) is a tertiary level art school, located in , an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school is an independent accredited higher education provider offering specialised study in studio arts ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Australia (1967–1969), she studied

textile arts Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials u ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

School of Arts and Crafts A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsor ...

(1967–1970). When she was 19, after disputes over the opera house, she and her family left Australia at short notice in April 1966. Back in Denmark, she married the architect Alex Popov who had worked with her father in Australia. The couple had two children in the early 1970s, Naja and Mika. After an early divorce, the children mainly lived with Utzon in her Danish home.

Artistic work

Utzon's early creations included brightly coloured textiles for

Bagsværd Church Bagsværd Church is a Lutheran church in Bagsværd on the northern outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark. Designed in 1968 by Jørn Utzon, it was completed in 1976.Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

headquarters in

Göteborg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a p ...

, Sweden, with a 36-metre wall and a 16-metre tapestry. In 1988, she completed a large red, white and black mural at the San Jose Convention Center resembling a flock of birds in flight. She has since decorated walls in the library of the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural College in

, and has added ceramic reliefs to the Finger B extension of

Copenhagen Airport Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup ( da, Københavns Lufthavn, Kastrup, ; ) is an international airport serving Copenhagen, Denmark, Zealand, the Øresund Region, and southern Sweden including Scania. It is the second largest airport in the Nordic coun ...

. Her creations have also included costumes and scenery for the

Royal Danish Ballet The Royal Danish Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Danish Theatre in Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen, Denmark. It is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world and originates from 1748, when the Ro ...

. Since the early 1990s, Utzon has been married to the blind French writer Hugues de Montalembert. The couple spend their time between Denmark, Paris and Can Feliz, the house on the island of

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

Utzon inherited from her father.

References

External links

Lin Utzon
at

Kunstindeks Danmark ''Weilbachs Kunstnerleksikon'' (Weilbach's Biographical Dictionary of Artists) is a Danish biographical dictionary of artists and architects. The current edition, which is also freely accessible online, contains the biographies of some 8,000 Danis ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Utzon, Lin 1946 births Living people 20th-century Danish ceramists 21st-century Danish ceramists Danish designers Danish textile designers Danish women artists Danish women designers People from Copenhagen People from Helsingør Municipality Designers from Copenhagen Danish women ceramists