iNationalmuseum · Blasieholmen
Wilhelm Kåge & Shōji Hamada: Ceramics Across Borders
Two ceramic masters, Swedish and Japanese, united by a love of clay and glaze and beautiful everyday objects for all; also explores cultural exchange as soft power.
In 1956 Wilhelm Kåge spent almost two weeks as Shōji Hamada's guest in Japan. Hamada had already visited him at Gustavsberg in 1952, and his first trip to Sweden, in 1929, was to study Skansen and Nordiska museet: a visitor who went to Skansen for the farmhouses, not the moose.
The two worked in very different ways. Kåge designed for a factory and Hamada ran his own workshop. The show puts more than 300 of their pieces side by side, about 100 of them lent by Tokyo's Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Hamada's museum in Mashiko and the Kåge family. If you grew up with grey-striped De runda formernas plates or a Pyro oven dish, you already know Kåge's factory side.
It's on the middle floor. Entry is SEK 160, free under 20 and free for everyone on Thursdays from 17:00 to 20:00. The audioguide runs 18 tracks, 35 minutes, and guided tours run Thursdays and Sundays at 14:00.
Look for
Kåge's Farsta dish (1960)
Red-brown stoneware with a pattern scratched into the clay under a mottled yellow-brown glaze, from the Farsta ware he made at Gustavsberg.
Kåge's 1920s and 30s trio
A cup with two handles, a vase with painted yellow decoration and a vase in a white glaze that was left to run.
Hamada's painted dish (1960s)
A stoneware dish with painted decoration, lent by Stockholm's Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want paintings: this is a floor of cups, dishes and vases.
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
- Wilhelm Kåge & Shōji Hamada: Ceramics Across BordersCourtesy 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