Marianne Strengell (a.k.a. Marianne Hammarström,
[ ] May 24, 1909 – May 8, 1998) was an influential Finnish-American
Modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
textile
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
designer in the twentieth century. Strengell was a professor at
Cranbrook Academy of Art
The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cr ...
from 1937 to 1942, and she served as department head from 1942 to 1962. She was able to translate hand-woven patterns for mechanized production, and pioneered the use of synthetic fibers.
["Marianne Strengell"](_blank)
''Knoll''. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
Early life
Strengell was born in
Helsinki, Finland
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city' ...
, daughter of Finnish architect Gustaf Strengell and interior designer Anna Wegelius. She graduated from the Central School of Industrial Design in Helsingfors in 1929, then went to
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
where she assisted in the preparations for the 1930
Stockholm Exhibition. Strengell held several positions in Scandinavia, designing rugs, textiles and interiors. One of her earliest positions was as a designer at Hemflit-Kotiahkeruus where her mother, Anna, was director and responsible for starting a cottage industry in weaving for the farmers' wives. Strengell left Scandinavia for the United States in 1936.
["Marianne Strengell Papers"](_blank)
''Cranbrook Archives''. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
Career
In 1931 Strengell was invited by family friend
Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1873 – July 1, 1950) was a Finnish-American Architecture, architect known for his work with art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century. He was also the father of famed architect Eero ...
to work at the Cranbrook Academy of Art; she began teaching there in 1937.
In 1942, when Loja Saarinen retired, Strengell replaced her as head of the Department of Weaving and Textile Design.
Soon after, a power loom was installed in the weaving studios. She developed a curriculum that emphasized weave structure, versus the more pictorial imagery used by Saarinen. In her 25 years at Cranbrook, she trained many textile artists, including
Jack Lenor Larsen
Jack Lenor Larsen (August 5, 1927 – December 22, 2020) was an American textile designer, author, collector and promoter of traditional and contemporary craftsmanship. Through his career he was noted for bringing fabric patterns and textiles to ...
, Robert Sailors and
Ed Rossbach
Ed Rossbach (Chicago, 1914 – Berkeley, California, October 7, 2002) was an American fiber artist.
He earned a BA in Painting and Design at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington in 1940, an MA in art education from Columbia Univer ...
. Her circle of friends and colleagues included
Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia (March 10, 1915 – November 1978) was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture furniture designer, designer.
Bertoia was born in Arzene, San Lorenzo, Province of Pordenone, Pordenone, Italy. A ...
,
Ben Baldwin
Ben Baldwin (born 1979) is a British television presenter, he was one of the main hosts of ITV's ''Make Your Play''. Ben has also presented on ITV Play's ''This Morning Puzzle Book''. He currently works on Endemol Produced Gala TV every Thursday ...
,
Ray and Charles Eames
Charles Eames (Charles Eames, Charles Eames, Jr) and Ray Eames (Ray Eames, Ray-Bernice Eames) were an American married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and moder ...
,
Florence Knoll
Florence Marguerite Knoll Bassett ( Schust; May 24, 1917 – January 25, 2019) was an American architect, interior designer, furniture designer, and entrepreneur who has been credited with revolutionizing office design and bringing modernist desi ...
, and
Eszter Haraszty. She maintained her role as Department Head of Weaving and Textile Design until she retired from Cranbrook in 1961.
While teaching at Cranbrook, Strengell held a number of outside consulting positions, and worked on
industrial design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...
commissions for architects, such as the interior fabrics for
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
's
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
Tech Center and work for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Her emphasis on texture rather than pattern influenced the American market in automotive and interior design. Her versatility in the development of new yarns and fabrics contributed toward the use of textiles as architectural elements. Strengell created original textile designs for automotive interiors for
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
,
General Motors Corporation
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
,
Chrysler
Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...
and
American Motors
American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the ...
, as well as for
United Airlines
United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois. . Her upholstery design "Taj Mahal" for the 1959
Lincoln Continental
The Lincoln Continental is a series of mid-sized and full-sized luxury cars produced by Lincoln, a division of the American automaker Ford Motor Company. The model line was introduced following the construction of a personal vehicle for Edse ...
is iconic. She sometimes worked in conjunction with her husband, architect Olav Hammarström, designing interiors and textiles for his projects. Most notably, they built and designed together the
Vera and Laszlo Tisza House
The Vera and Laszlo Tisza House is a historic house at 2 Deer Trail (a cul-de-sac off Gross Hill Road) in the remote northeastern part of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, within the Cape Cod National Seashore. It is one of a number of surviving houses ...
for professors Vera and Laszlo Tisza located in
Wellfleet, Massachusetts
Wellfleet is a New England town, town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 United S ...
, purchased four of the five original lots that comprised the Tisza property between August 1954 and September 1956 (Barnstable County Registry of Deeds 1954a, 1954b, 1955, 1956), and completed construction in 1960. Olav Hammarström and Marianne Strengell's own vacation home, which they designed for themselves in 1952, is located approximately 400 feet west of the Tisza property across Gross Hill Road.
In 1951, Strengell was sent by the
International Cooperation Administration
The International Cooperation Administration (ICA) was a United States government agency operating from June 30, 1955 until September 4, 1961, responsible for foreign assistance and 'nonmilitary security' programs. It was the predecessor of the ...
to
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
as a weaving and textile adviser to help establish cottage industries. Simultaneously she acted as a consultant there on weaving and textile production, for the U.N. Technical Assistance Administration. With her husband she developed a new loom to accommodate wider widths of fabric, and she incorporated native fibers, such as coconut and grass, into the textiles. Her efforts helped raise the standard of living in both countries. Strengell and Hammarström traveled the world, working, lecturing, and studying developments in architecture, arts and crafts, and the use of indigenous materials.
Strengell had more than 70 solo exhibitions throughout the United States and the world. In 1983 she began donating her textiles to museums, including the American Museum of Arts and Crafts, the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...
, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
, the
Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal, and the
Museum of Applied Art in Helsinki, Finland.
Example of her design work are in the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
,
the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
the
Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
,
the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
,
the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
,
and the
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
.
In 1985 Strengell was named as a fellow of the
American Craft Council
The American Craft Council (ACC) is a national non-profit organization that champions craft based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1943 by Aileen Osborn Webb, the council hosts national craft shows and conferences, publishes a quarterly maga ...
.
Personal life
She was first married to Cranbrook artist, Charles Yerkes Dusenbury, and had two children, Sandra, and Chris. She later married Olav Hammarström, and she died of throat cancer at their home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts on May 8, 1998.
Exhibitions
* ''Finland 100: The Cranbrook Collection'' - March 21, 2017 - January 14, 2018 Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
References
External links
Marianne Strengell (1909 – 1998) Finnish Textile Designerencyclopedia.design
Marianne Strengellin the Knoll Designer Bios series
''Education and Industry'' Cooper-Hewitt Object of the Day (June 27, 2016)
''A Fabric with a Touch of Tomorrow'' Cooper-Hewitt Object of the Day (September 4, 2012)
''Shooting Stars Curtain'' Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection of works by Marianne Strengell Minneapolis Institute of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strengell, Marianne
1909 births
1998 deaths
Finnish emigrants to the United States
Modernist designers
Artists from Helsinki
American textile designers
Finnish textile artists
Women textile artists