Märta Måås-Fjetterström

Märta Måås-Fjetterström
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The artist of rugs.

Märta Måås-Fjetterström founded a weaving workshop in Båstad in 1919. Her rugs with Swedish motifs are sought-after collector’s items.

Märta Måås-Fjetterström was born in 1873 in Kimstad in Östergötland. She trained at the Technical School, today’s Konstfack, in Stockholm. Early on she became interested in the old Swedish textile tradition, particularly the weavings of Skåne with their strong colours and stylised patterns.

After her studies she worked for handicraft associations in Skåne and elsewhere. She drew patterns and ran weaving workshops. She wanted to renew traditional handicraft, not merely copy it, and gave the old patterns a new, personal form.

In 1919 she founded her own weaving workshop in Båstad. There she produced rugs and textiles to her own designs. Her motifs were drawn from Swedish nature and from folk art: flowers, trees, birds, meadows and the sea, often simplified into rhythmic patterns. She worked in rölakan, flossa and other traditional techniques, and paid great attention to the quality of the wool and the nuances of vegetable dyeing.

During her lifetime she designed hundreds of patterns. Her rugs came to adorn both private homes and public buildings, and they were shown at exhibitions in Sweden and abroad.

She died in 1941. The workshop lives on in Båstad and still weaves her patterns by hand, alongside works by later designers. Older rugs from the workshop sell for high sums today and are regarded as classics of Swedish design.