Mathilde Elisabeth "Lis" Ahlmann (April 13, 1894 – January 15, 1979) was a Danish weaver and textile designer who was one of the founders of modern Danish textile art and influential in the development of the style known as

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 ...

Biography

Born in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

, Denmark, she trained with weaving master

Gerda Henning 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 paint ...

, completing her apprenticeship in 1929. She also studied painting with Harad Giersing and worked for a time 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 ...

for

Kähler Keramik Kähler Keramik (Kähler Ceramics) is a Danish ceramics manufacturer based in Næstved on the island of Zealand. History Joachim Christian Herman Kähler (1808–84) from Heiligenhafen in the Duchy of Holstein established himself as a potter th ...

. She traveled around Europe for further studies. She opened her own workshop in 1934, and during that decade worked with furniture designer

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 ...

, most notably designing the hand-woven fabrics for his famous ''Circle Bed'' (Kugleseng). By 1938 she had begun to exhibit her textiles, and she became known for a strongly geometric style featuring stripes and checks, initially in earth tones. Drawing on both traditional Danish folk patterns and

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

ideas, her work in this decade with fabrics designed to complement furniture helped to shape the style now known as

. During World War II, she worked with

Børge Mogensen Børge Mogensen (13 April 1914 – 5 October 1972), was a Danish furniture designer. He was one of the most important among a generation of furniture designers who made the concept of “Danish Modern” known throughout the world. Together with ...

to create fabrics for his new line of mass-produced beechwood furniture inspired by Shaker designs. This collaboration marked a shift in her production towards industrially produced designs as the scale of production exceeded what was possible with hand-woven textiles. She continued to work with Morgensen, and her palette of muted colors and grays became brighter, complementing the oak that was his preferred material after the war. Although Ahlmann herself worked only with wool and cotton (never synthetics), she developed a reputation for being able to cross easily between the techniques of hand weaving and the demands of industrial textile production. She later created designs for other textile manufacturers, such as C. Olesen Co. in the 1950s. Ahlemann's designs are considered timeless, and her stature in the field was recognized in 1948 with the

Tagea Brandt Rejselegat The Tagea Brandts ''Rejselegat'' (Travel Scholarship) is a Danish award to women who have made a significant contribution in science, literature or art. The grant, which is given without application, was created and endowed by Danish industrialist ...

, a travel scholarship awarded to outstanding Danish women, and again in 1978 when she received the

Royal Swedish Academy of Art The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts ( sv, Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna), commonly called the Royal Academy, is located in Stockholm, Sweden. An independent organization that promotes the development of painting, sculpture, archite ...

's C. F. Hansen Medal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlmann, Lis 1894 births 1979 deaths Danish modern Danish textile artists Danish weavers 20th-century Danish artisans Danish textile designers People from Aarhus Danish women designers Danish women artisans Women textile artists