Barbro Nilsson

Barbro Nilsson was a Swedish textile artist and designer who is remembered in particular for her large tapestries, including the one she produced in collaboration with expressionist painter Sven Erixon (1899-1979) for the Concert Hall in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1939. She was active as a teacher at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm as well as head of Märta Måås-Fjetterström’s weaving establishment in Båstad, Sweden. Nilsson produced her own rugs and church textiles, many with motifs inspired by nature.

Nilsson grew up in Stockholm, where her father was manager of the prestigious Nordiska Kompaniet department store. Here in the Swedish capital, Nilsson was trained in the art of hand weaving at the Johanna Brunsson (1846–1920, Swedish weaving arts instructor whose famous Johanna Brunssons praktiska konstvävskola/The Johanna Brunsson Practical Arts Weaving School, founded in 1889, became a pioneering institution that educated generations of weaving instructors, including international students from Europe, Russia and the United States) school from the age of 14. Between 1918 and 1920, Nilsson remained at the school as a teacher before broadening her competence in weaving at Stockholm’s Technical School (nowadays better known as Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design).

By the time Nilsson had turned 25 years old, in 1924, she already had many years of training and teaching experience in weaving under her belt. She had mastered a large variety of weaving techniques, including soumak, plain weave, tapestry weave and ‘flossa’ (pile). She then began to teach technical drawing and weaving at both the Johanna Brunsson school and at Tekniska skolan. She later became a visiting instructor at the Copenhagen arts and crafts school.

In the 1920s, Nilsson established her own studio in Stockholm. One of her most important clients was the firm Salén,which ordered furnishing material and rugs. In 1928, she married the sculptor Robert Nilsson (1894–1980). Thanks to alarge travel grant he was awarded, the couple spent the next three years in Rome.

In 1936, Nilsson was commissioned to produce a large tapestry as part of Sven Erixson’s proposal for refurbishing the Gothenburg Concert Hall. This work, lauded for its painting-quality weaving technique and colour scheme, was just one of a series of fruitful collaborations with various artists in which Nilsson produced woven interpretations of their painted models. The first of these was with the artist Bertil Damm (1887-1942), who designed a tapestry for the legendary shipM/S Kungsholm in 1928. This was followed by a series of commissions with the likes of Olle Nyman (1909-1999) and Endre Nemes (1909-1985). Nilsson’s great skills in a range of weaving techniques not only enabled her to produce painting-quality products but also gave her artistic freedom in the weaving process.

In 1942, Nilsson was appointed artistic director and manager of the Märta Måås-Fjetterström weaving studio in Båstad. She remained there for the next 30 years. Winning acclaim as ‘the number one Swedish textile artist’, Nilsson brought in a number of her former students from the Stockholm Technical School, including Marianne Richter (1916–2010) and Barbro Sprinchorn (1929-1973).

In 1943, she created one of her most successful rug designs, Snäckorna, the first of a series in which she employed thehaute-lisse technique. Pia Lundqvist (Professor of history at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden) writes (in Barbro Nilsson, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/BarbroNilsson, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon, article by Pia Lundqvist, retrieved 2026-01-04):

In contrast to her predecessor, Barbro Nilsson had solid practical weaving skills. She made use of more dynamic designs facilitated through the freer styled tapestry-weaving technique instead of her predecessor’s strict plain- weaving compositions. By weaving the piece on a vertically taut warp – so-called ‘haute lisse’ – Barbro Nilsson’s finished weaving resembled a painting on an easel and allowed the ongoing work to be viewed from a distance. This certainly contributed to the painting-esque nature of Barbro Nilsson’s weavings.Barbro Nilsson’s compositions for public artworks and rugs often took their inspiration from nature which served as the starting point of abstract patterns. This testified to her deep familiarity with the wealth of natural shapes. Many of her rugs display decorative, sometimes grid-like outer patterns which were overlaid by zigzag or wave patterns. In general her work is characterised by stylised natural patterns along with her ‘genial sense for colour schemes’. She produced the rug called Snäckorna in 1943 and it became one of her most frequently woven rugs. It was the first in a series of rugs woven using the tapestry technique which allowed for softer designs when compared to the more common plain weave

Nilsson carried on working until late in her life. Over the years, Nilsson produced decorative textiles for over 40 Swedish churches, including Helsingborg’s Gustaf Adolf Church and Stockholm’s Kungsholm’s Church. She also produced works for the Swedish embassy in Moscow, the public library in Helsingborg, Sweden, and the Supreme Court of Sweden in Stockholm. Her work can be found in the collections of the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, Sweden; and museums in Copenhagen and Trondheim, Norway.

In 1948, Nilsson was awarded the prestigious Litteris et Artibus medal for her contributions to culture. She was later also awarded the Prins Eugen medal, along with a wealth of other Swedish and foreign cultural prizes.

Barbro Nilsson passed away on 11 October 1983.

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