Look at the rugs, that is who I am": Discover Sweden’s royally-beloved textile artist Märta Måås-Fjetterström

Two artisan weavers work in tandem on an industrial loom, the wooden klack-klack-klack filling Strandgården, a harbour-side studio in Båstad. At regular intervals, they push wool yarn into the tightly stretched, unbleached linen warp. With determined precision, they incorporate new hues, working together to interpret the pattern before them. Their craft merges mathematics, logic, creativity, and, most importantly, “feeling”, as Tina Swedrup, the current owner of Märta Måås-Fjetterström AB (MMF AB), puts it.

Märta Måås-Fjetterström’s factory looks, works and sounds the same as it did when the artist officially opened its doors in 1919. The tradition, the concentration, the craftsmanship, the unwavering loyalty to the company’s founder and her vision – which still sees more than 20 weavers deliver pile knots and rölakan ridges more than a century later. “It is, and always has been, about the quality,” notes Swedrup, who first discovered Måås-Fjetterström in 1984 when she married her husband and business partner Ulrik. “We were allowed to order one of her pieces as a wedding gift from Ulrik’s parents,” Swedrup says. One order turned into many, the collection of original woven tapestries and rugs – preferably dated before 1942 – growing exponentially until the couple finally procured the company in 2001.

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When Måås-Fjetterström founded her firm, she had "yet to receive the vote," as Swedrup puts it. And while she didn’t fight on the barricades with the Suffragettes, her life was spent building a company that liberated women, granting them independence through salaried, skilled work. The only reason why she was able to run her own business at all was due to a law passed during the 1860s. “Unmarried women had the right to their inheritance and what they earned themselves,” explains Swedrup. “If she had married, then she would have lost the right to her company.”

Måås-Fjetterström’s life is shrouded in mystery. “When she died, her siblings burned her correspondence,” says Swedrup, who believes this was done at the artist's wishes. Måås-Fjetterström was by all accounts “elusive” when it came to revealing personal details and motivations. She felt that her textiles spoke loudly enough; she had no need to embellish or wax poetic about her work. “She would always say: ‘look at the rugs, that is who I am’,” says Swedrup.

Flipping through the almost 700 original artworks in MMF’s archive, Måås-Fjetterström’s inimitable eye for shape and colour is palpable. Her sketches were deliberate and sparse, signed with the artist’s full name. As with most of her contemporary creatives, nature was an integral inspiration for Måås-Fjetterström. Even her most austere work is linked to Nordic flora or fauna. In November 1899, visiting a relative in a “tall, endlessly large pine wood,” Måås-Fjetterström wrote to a friend that “the forest air is infinitely fragrant, particularly during star-filled nights,” and told them of “these lovely, deep pine forests, to walk alone in them on narrow, soft paths...”

Born in 1873, Måås-Fjetterström grew up in a religious family in Vadstena, in the south of Sweden. She had an urge to draw and paint from a young age. At 17, she left her childhood home and enrolled at the School of Industrial Arts in Stockholm and later the acclaimed art university, Konstfack.

At the time, industrialism was booming, old crafts and aesthetics were perceived as passé while new waves of impressionism, modernism and Art Nouveau swept through Europe. Functionalism was also looming on the horizon. “[Måås-Fjetterström] wasn’t very fond of functionalism,” laughs Swedrup. It was an infected debate at the time, fronted by Måås-Fjetterström’s friend and frequent collaborator Carl Malmsten. “It was craftsmanship, art, versus mass production,” Swedrup says.

Måås-Fjetterström came of age when a certain echelon of Swedish society pushed to preserve what once was. Consider Artur Hazelius, who founded the open-air museum Skansen, detailing pre-industrial Swedish country life, in Stockholm in 1891. Or the establishment of the Association of Swedish Handicraft in 1899, which was set up to promote old traditions developed for a new era of ornamental romanticism. Måås-Fjetterström found herself caught between the old and the new, bridging tradition with innovation.

She was a pioneer of the handicraft movement, insisting that craftsmanship be seen as art. At the age of 23, following the 1897 Stockholm Exhibition, she signed a petition for change demanding that Swedish handicrafts move in a more artistic direction. Alongside her name were the likes of Hilma Af Klint, Elsa Beskow, and Carl Larsson. A visionary of new techniques, Måås-Fjetterström kept pushing the technical boundaries of weaving. Take ‘Blåklockan’ (the ‘Harebell’), for example. Made in 1926, the wall hanging used a skill devised by Måås-Fjetterström called “inlay on a linen ground”, which allows light to filter through the fabric.

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Her contemporary approach, however, was not always appreciated by her peers. “The Arts and Crafts movement was incredibly rigid at the time,” notes Swedrup. “Things were supposed to be done in a certain way.” While the Handicraft Association aimed to replicate old rural patterns, Måås-Fjetterström wished to create new ones. As a result, she was dismissed as the director of the Malmö County Handi-
craft Association in 1911 for her trailblazing work – her motifs were considered too modern, the techniques not traditionally Scandinavian enough.

At the behest of Ludvig Nobel (Alfred Nobel’s older brother and a noted engineer, businessman and humanitarian), Måås-Fjetterström moved to Båstad to establish her company and weaving school in the presence of Sweden’s cultural and social elite. “This is during a time when King Gustav V would visit for tennis every summer,” says Swedrup. A keen amateur tennis player, the King would attend almost all of the tournaments in the town and regularly donated Måås-Fjetterström’s rugs as prizes.

Moving into Strandgården in 1919, Måås-Fjetterström got straight to work setting up looms, yarn, storage, and work spaces in Båstad. In a letter written by the artist to a friend in London, she allows a rare glimpse into the day-to-day operations of her nascent studio. “I have been swamped with work, practical matters, to keep the studio running during this year,” she writes. A savvy businesswoman, Måås-Fjetterström steered her company through the turbulent first half of the 20th century, successfully remaining at the helm until her death in 1941. As the figurehead of the company, not only did she participate in major international exhibitions, marketing her work on a grand scale, she could also be found in the most prestigious museums worldwide.

The examples of her success are countless. In 1925, British textile manufacturer James Morton said of her work that, “it is worth getting a specimen of everything fresh she does. She is a creative poet working in new materials.” After the World Fairs in Paris (1925 and 1937, respectively), the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and later the Louvre acquired her wall hangings for their collections. In 1927 and 1937, Måås-Fjetterström’s rugs, drapery and delicate weave of wild horses could be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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With Carl Malmsten, Måås-Fjetterström completed her first royal commission in 1924: collaborating on the interior design for a living room at Ulriksdal Palace. It was a wedding gift from Stockholm’s citizens to the widowed Crown Prince Gustaf VI Adolf and his new consort Lady Louise Mountbatten in which Malmsten’s furniture rested on Måås-Fjetterström’s specially made flatweave rug. That same year, in connection with the Association for Swedish Handicrafts’ 25th anniversary, King Gustav V awarded Måås-Fjetterström with the Litteris et Artibus medal – the most distinguished award that could be bestowed upon a woman in Sweden at the time. Since then, Måås-Fjetterström’s work has covered the floors of many royal palaces. ‘Vita Spetsporten’ (‘The Gothic Portal’) is a particular favourite among the royals; in 1956, the late Queen Elizabeth II received the rug as a gift from the Swedish King.

Though her talent and success were singular, Måås-Fjetterström believed in passing on her craft. Not only did she suspect it would help reinvigorate the Arts and Crafts movement in Sweden, but she also wanted to give female weavers a chance at independence. “There are these stories in which weavers would come to Miss Fjetterström and ask how to solve a technically complex problem in a pattern,” says Swedrup. “And she would tell them to solve it themselves.” As a result, the women, mainly from the rural area around Båstad, were encouraged to think critically and creatively about their work. “Their education continued once they were employed,” says Swedr up. “She cared about development like that. And it is the same today; the company’s cornerstone is knowledge and quality.”

Continuing the artist’s legacy is integral to Swedrup’s work, treading the fine line between heritage and modernisation. But Måås-Fjetterström’s rugs tend to sell themselves, her designs found in some of the most fashionable homes around the world. Take Marco Zanini, founder of the Zanini Collection, for example. Born to a Swedish mother from Dalarna, Zanini set out to discover his Scandinavian heritage. He says that he “instantly fell in love with Märta Måås-Fjetterström’s incredible craftsmanship.”

The former creative director for Schiaparelli, who previously helmed both Halston and Rochas, is the latest in a long line of impressive collaborators. “I had to pinch myself, I jumped with joy,” Zanini says of being asked to design a rug. An avid collector of the MMF textiles – multiple rugs adorn his Milan apartment – he notes that discovering her work is like “diving into the truest notion of tradition and craftsmanship.” “Her work is so intricate and incredibly complex, each square centimetre of fabric has countless colours and threads, and still it looks so effortless,” he says. “I could never dream of replicating it."