iNationalmuseum · Blasieholmen
Kåge – Sketches and Drawings from the Nationalmuseum Archives
Archival sketches, drawings, photographs and printed matter by designer Wilhelm Kåge (1889-1960), shown in the museum's Old Library.
In 1917 the Gustavsberg porcelain factory hired Wilhelm Kåge to prepare its stand for a major design exhibition at Liljevalchs. He had never worked with ceramics. He was a poster artist, illustrator and woodcut printmaker, and he drew that exhibition's poster too.
You find this display in the Old Library, a 1919 reading room refitted in library green, where the old bookshelves now hold small display cases. Everything comes from the museum's archive: life drawings, photographs, printed matter, designs for Argenta (the green-and-silver art pottery launched at the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition) and sketches for the bright faience dishes and vases of 1942. The material reached the state with the Gustavsberg collection in 2000.
It's one room, put on as a companion to the larger Wilhelm Kåge & Shōji Hamada exhibition, and the same ticket covers both: SEK 160, free under 20, and free for everyone on Thursdays from 17:00 to 20:00.
Look for
The Argenta decor drawings
Designs for the art pottery Kåge launched at the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, with its green glaze and silver decoration worked out first on paper.
The 1942 faience sketches
Sketches for colourful faience dishes and vases, made the year Gustavsberg opened a studio for artistic experiments.
The croquis drawings
Quick life drawings of a nude model, which the museum shows for Kåge's sure line and feel for movement and form.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want the ceramics themselves: this room is paper only, and the pots are in the Kåge & Hamada show.
With kids
Entry is free for under-20s.
Free in the same building
- The Design DepotFree open storage with 1,200+ objects telling the story of ceramics and design from the 18th century on, plus a changing mini-show from the collections.
- The Sculpture CourtyardA glass-roofed piazza of 19th-century sculpture, from Thor, Odin and Balder to the shift from idealism to realism. Free, on the ground floor.
Also at Nationalmuseum
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- Kåge – Sketches and Drawings from the Nationalmuseum ArchivesCourtesy of Nationalmuseum
- Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian – Tehran/New YorkCourtesy of Moderna Museet
- Jan Håfström – The Lost WorldCourtesy of Moderna Museet
- MUCHA – Beyond Art NouveauCourtesy of Artipelag
- NationalmuseumJacob Shaw / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska museet)Holger.Ellgaard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- The Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren)Holger.Ellgaard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Moderna MuseetHolger Ellgaard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Royal Palace of Stockholm (Kungliga slottet)Magnus Johansson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0