Anna Petrus

Anna Petrus (née Petersson) was a Swedish sculptor, graphic artist, designer, and dancer. She is remembered in particular for the nowadays iconic pewter works with the lion motif that she designed in the mid-1920s for Svenskt Tenn, some of which are still produced today, and the equally celebrated cast iron works she created for Näfveqvarn. Petrus also contributed to the design of the Swedish pavilion for the 1925 Paris Exhibition (Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes) as well as provided exquisite interior details for the legendary Swedish cruise ship M/S Kungsholm in 1928. After a few decades out of the limelight, interest in Petrus’ production is now greater than ever. Marie Rehnberg (born 1954, Swedish art historian specialising in 20th-century Swedish art and design) writes (in Anna Petrus. Sculptor, Designer and Pioneer, 2022):

Anna Petrus was a conspicuous and critically acclaimed presence in the art scene of the 1910s and ‘20s but her career faltered and, by the time of her death in 1949, she was largely forgotten. Over recent years, her expressive art has been reappraised and lost works rediscovered. There has also been international recognition of her pioneering spirit, both in her own right as an applied artist and as a designer for Svenskt Tenn and the Näfveqvarn Ironworks.

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, Anna Petersson was the daughter of professor Oskar Petersson (1844–1912), an academic specialising in paediatrics, and the Countess Maria Stackelberg (1848–1897). Thanks to an inheritance from her mother (which made Petrus financially independent), she was able, in 1907, to travel to London to study sculpture at Chelsea Polytechnic School. On returning to Stockholm, she studied at the private art college Althins Målarskola (the Althin School of Painting), which prepared her entry to the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, where she studied from 1910 to 1913. In 1910, the same year she started her studies at the Royal Institute of Art, she took the surname Petrus.

As an artist, Petrus focused on sculpture and various graphic techniques such as woodcut and etching. Early examples of her work in these fields could be found in the sculpture Längtan / Longing (c. 1916, patinated plaster), the linoleum cut Faun and Nymph (c. 1912) and the aquatint etching Sorg / Grief (c. 1913). Faun and Nymph was (along with eight other linoleum cuts) included in Petrus’ exhibition debut at the celebrated Baltic Exhibition (showcasing the industry, art and culture of Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Russia — the four countries then bordering the Baltic Sea) in Malmö, Sweden, in the summer of 1914, where she exhibited as a member of the Swedish Society of Original Wood Engravers (est. 1912) and the Swedish Printmakers’ Association (est. 1910).

Petrus’ proper debut exhibition, in her own right, was held in February 1916 at the premises of the Swedish Association for Art at Kungsträdgården, Stockholm. Once again Petrus exhibited graphics produced using techniques such as etching, linoleum and wood cuts. It was as a sculptor, however, that she impressed visitors and critics alike. Gregor Paulsson (1889 - 1977, Swedish art historian; curator at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 1916 - 1924 and professor of art history at Uppsala University, 1934 - 1956), for example, wrote (in his review of the exhibition in Stockholms Dagblad) about ‘a great deal of rich, supple detail’. Further recognition came from Swedish art historian and professor Johnny Roosval, who commissioned a marble version of Längtan / Longing for his legendary home Villa Muramaris on the Swedish island of Gotland.

In 1915 Petrus had moved into a large studio apartment in the Tennis Pavilion in Stockholm. Amidst Petrus’ preparations for her 1920 solo exhibition (at the recently opened Swedish-French Art Gallery in Stockholm), disaster struck. A fire broke out in her studio, destroying most of her recent work. Despite all the exhibition still went ahead as planned, albeit in a revised version. In the wake of the fire, Petrus rested and gathered strength before considering her next course of action: a long trip abroad. The primary destinations for her eight-month-long trip were Italy and North Africa, with a stopover in Paris for a couple of weeks. Marie Rehnberg writes:

While her tour of various Italian cities provided some inspiration, it was in North Africa that she saw places and artefacts that prompted unexpected urges. Back in Stockholm, she embarked on something quite new, far removed from sculpture. […] With improbable energy, she threw herself into a craft that differed from everything she had previously attempted; she began to produce trays and tray tables of various sizes and shapes, hammered in metals such as pewter, copper and bronze, occasionally with silver inlay. Table stands were carved in wood, sometimes by her own hand. Her inspiration was African smoking tables and the motifs with which she decorated the trays and tabletops were somewhat exotic.

A few of these unique tables have survived. As far as art historians can tell, the Lion Table, for example, was produced in only two examples: one with legs in oak and another in darker wood. According to Petrus’ daughter Sonja Lyttkens (1919 – 2014, Swedish mathematician, the third woman to earn a mathematics doctorate in Sweden and the first of these women to obtain a permanent university position in mathematics), Anna Petrus carved these herself. Other tables (crafted in carpentry workshops), like the one in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (c. 1922, wood and pewter, 68 x 61 x 61 cm, NMK 47/2010) were designed by Uno Åhrén (1897–1977, Swedish architect and city planner and a leading proponent of functionalism in Sweden), with the trays composed by Petrus. Some of these tables were shown at the 1923 Gothenburg Tercentennial Jubilee Exposition (a world’s fair held in Gothenburg, Sweden, marking the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city).

Paradoxically, Åhrén would later become famous as one of the designers for the Housing Exhibition of Stockholmsutställningen (the Stockholm Exhibition, held in 1930 with a great impact on the architectural styles known as functionalism and international style), and in 1931 he was one of the six co-authors of the manifesto Acceptera, a plea for acceptance of functionalism, standardisation, and mass production as a means of cultural change towards much-needed social equality in Sweden. By the early 1920s, however, Åhrén was still working in the version of Art Deco later known under the name Swedish Grace.

At the time, pewter had long been regarded as an old, inferior material, and through her work, Petrus became one of the driving forces behind Svenskt Tenn, founded in 1924 by Estrid Ericson (1894 - 1981), creating a number of objects, such as mirrors, vases, candlesticks and small sculptures for the company. The lion became her trademark and was widely used in the Svenskt Tenn company’s publications. One famous example of her lion design could be found in the monumental candlestick in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (1923 - 1928, pewter, height 37 cm, NMK 204/2018). Several of Petrus’s designs are still produced by Svenskt Tenn, like the popular pewter vase Profile, which has remained in the company’s product range ever since it was first produced in 1927. Marie Rehnberg writes:

It seems likely that it was in 1927 that the idea of a collaboration between Petrus and Estrid Ericson was first mooted, although as everything moved so quickly it is difficult to be precise. Petrus and Ericson certainly moved in the same circles and their paths crossed on numerous occasions, including as exhibitors or spectators at the national and international expositions that were so prevalent at the time.

Petrus also began a fruitful collaboration with the renowned Näfveqvarn Ironworks, founded in 1623 as an armoury to manufacture cannons and cannonballs for the Swedish state. From the mid-19th century, however, the most sought-after products were cast iron stoves and cast iron decorative items. In the early 1920s, Näfveqvarn became one of Sweden’s leading design companies. The company’s artistic director began collaborating with artists and architects such as Folke Bensow (1886 - 1971), Gunnar Asplund (1885 - 1940) and Carl Hörvik (1882 - 1954), who designed benches, tables, tobacco tins, fountains and urns made of cast iron. In addition to this, the company produced sculptures and architectural decorations that can still be seen today on several buildings erected in the 1920s.

By the time Petrus was working with Näfveqvarn, the company reaped great international success, not least thanks to her designs. Petrus created a number of decorative items for Näfveqvarn which were displayed at the groundbreaking 1925 Paris Exhibition Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. They included the monumental four-metre-high pillars and lintels framing the entrance to the internationally acclaimed Swedish pavilion, designed by architect Carl Bergsten (1879 - 1935).

Furthermore, Petrus also competed in the 1925 Paris Exhibition’s artistic metalwork category with pewterware, trays and tables made in her own studio, including the magnificent Lion Table, and was awarded a gold medal. Additional international success, in collaboration with Näfveqvarn, came in 1927 with the three cast-iron tables manufactured for the exhibition Swedish Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Petrus’ final tour de force as a designer and sculptor was linked to M/S Kungsholm, the most expensive luxury liner ever built in Sweden, launched by the Swedish American Line in 1928. Kungsholm’s interior design was intended to show what Swedish art and crafts were capable of and that Sweden could compete with France in the Art Deco style. The interior of the ship was one of the most elaborate in Sweden in the 1920s, and architect Carl Bergsten was chosen to be responsible for the overall artistic design. He gathered around him some of the best Swedish designers of the time. They included Carl Malmsten (1888 - 1972), Simon Gate (1883 - 1945), Edward Hald (1883 - 1980), Wilhelm Kåge (1889 - 1960), Märta Måås-Fjetterström (1873 - 1941), Anna Petrus and many more. The positive international reaction showed that Bergsten and his colleagues had succeeded. It was felt that not even the French could have achieved better. An Italian naval architect commented on Kungsholm: ‘When I finished my ship, I felt proud, but now that I have seen Kungsholm, I am ashamed.’

One of the absolute highlights of the ship’s interior was the fire surround in the first-class smoking lounge. Marie Rehnberg writes:

The liner is long gone. Requisitioned by the United States Government’s War Shipping Administration for use as a troop transport during the second world war, its interiors were ripped out and disposed of. All that remains are some drawings, press cuttings, photographs, advertising brochures, coloured posters and a few chairs. But in 2021, one of the masterpieces from the vessel’s interior turned up; Starry Sky is a large cast-iron fire surround designed by Anna Petrus and manufactured at the Näfveqvarn Ironworks for the first-class smoking lounge. Somehow the piece had made its way to Gothenburg and was discovered walled into a wall in a private home, far from the glamour of Kungsholm and, fortunately, preserved in as good as original condition.

A replica, cast in 2021, of Starry Sky is nowadays included in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (1928/2021, cast iron, 145 x 192 x 24 cm, NMK 68/2021).

Petrus also designed four sculptures, based on the elements: Water, Fire, Earth and Air, to be used as corner figures for the coving in the first-class library. It appears, however, that these were never installed in their intended places. Two of them, Earth (1928, copper, 33 x 123 x 70 cm, NMK 64/2013) and Fire (1928, copper, 33 x 123 x 70 cm, NMK 63/2013), were discovered in a private park in south-central Sweden in 2012 and are nowadays in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

In 1928, together with Uno Åhrén, she made a proposal for the remodelling of Hogland Park in Karlskrona, Sweden, for which Petrus designed the monumental artwork Vindarnas Brunn. However, the proposal was never realised. Petrus subsequently withdrew from creative artwork in 1930, and passed away in Kalmar, Sweden, on 26 July 1949.

In addition to Firestorm Foundation, Petrus is represented in prominent collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, U.S.A.; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation