Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, is a university college for higher education in the area of art, crafts and design in Stockholm, Sweden.[2]
Konstfack has had several different names since it was founded in 1844 by the ethnologist and artist Nils Månsson Mandelgren as a part-time art school for artisans, under the name "Söndags-Rit-skola för Handtverkare" ("Sunday Drawing School for Artisans"). The school was taken over by Svenska Slöjdföreningen (today known as Svensk form)[3] the next year and renamed Svenska Slöjdföreningens skola.
In 1857, the first two female students (Sofi Granberg and Matilda Andersson) were accepted, and the following year female students officially were invited to apply.[3]
It became a state school and was renamed Slöjdskolan i Stockholm (Handicraft School in Stockholm) in 1859; and in the context of a thorough reorganisation, where the school was divided into four departments in 1879, to Tekniska skolan (The Technical School). From 1945 it was known as Konstfackskolan (The school of art departments), when the institution was divided into the departments devoted to distinct disciplines that remain largely today: Textile, Decorative art, Sculpture, Ceramics, Furniture and Interior Design, Metal and Advertising and Printing. The school also obtained official status and had a two-year day school and a three-year arts and craft evening school. To this was added a two-year higher Arts and Crafts school and a three-year Art Teacher institute. It was given the status of a högskola ("university college") in 1978. From 1993 it was called Konstfack, the short form of the full name, formerly used colloquially.[4]
Long located on Norrmalm, between Klara kyrka and Hötorget, the school was in 1959 moved to a new building on Valhallavägen with well-equipped workshops, designed by architects Gösta Åberg and Tage Hertzell. In 2004 it once again moved, to the former headquarters of LM Ericsson at Telefonplan in South Stockholm. The 20,300-square metre interior of the old factory building was redesigned by architects including Gert Wingårdh.[5]
Following the standards of the Bologna process, Konstfack offers bachelor's degree programmes (3 years, 180 ECTS credits, Bachelor of Fine Arts), and master's degree programmes (2 years, 120 ECTS credits, Master of Fine Arts). There are also Art Education programmes (teacher programmes, 4/5 years and 5 years). The 2-year Animation education existed between 1996 and 2005; and was located in Eksjö.
Craft (Ceramics and Glass / Jewellery and Corpus / Textiles)
Design Echologies
Fine Art
Spatial Design
Visual Communication
One goal of Konstfack's two-year Graduate Programmes is to attract both Swedish and international students, and the education is held mainly in English.
Konstfack offers courses for professionals, for example CuratorLab and Research Lab.
Departments
Konstfack has four departments:
Craft
Design, Interior architecture and Visual communications
Fine Art
Department of Visual Arts and Sloyd Education
Examinations and The Degree Exhibition
The third year of the bachelor's programme and the second year of the master's includes a degree project, ten weeks at BFA-level and twenty at MFA-level, ending with a public examination and, if the student passes the examination, an exhibition for all graduating students: the Degree Exhibition (Vårutställningen in Swedish). The annual exhibition usually takes place at Konstfack during two weeks in May, with around 180 exhibiting students, and attracts thousands of visitors. Link to the official website for the Spring Exhibition 2023.
Notable alumni
A selection of some distinguished former students at the different departments at Konstfack (art or designer groups referred to by their collective names):[4]
Elsa Beskow was a famous Swedish author and illustrator of children's books. Among her better known books are Tale of the Little Little Old Woman and Aunt Green, Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender.
Education in Stockholm goes back to 1583, when the small college Collegium Regium Stockholmense was founded in by King John III in Stockholm, Sweden.
Stig Lindberg was a Swedish ceramic designer, glass designer, textile designer, industrial designer, painter, teacher, and illustrator. One of Sweden's most important postwar designers, Lindberg created whimsical studio ceramics and graceful tableware lines during a long career with the Gustavsberg pottery factory.
Gunnel Pettersson, born 1960 in Malmö, is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Simrishamn and Malmö.
Lena Bergström is a Swedish textiles and glass designer.
Siri Karin Derkert was a Swedish artist and sculptor. She was also a strong advocate for peace, feminism and environmental issues.
Per Bertil Sundberg is a Swedish ceramic and glass artist. Until 2005 he worked at Orrefors glassworks, and has subsequently been a professor at Konstfack and an independent artist.
Anna Katarina Fredrika Munthe-Norstedt was a Swedish painter known for still-lifes and interiors. She also worked with genre painting and portraits.
Kaisa Brita Melanton née Björklund (1920–2012) was a pioneering Swedish textile artist who is remembered in particular for the large, post-modernist works she created for local authorities, theatres and churches. She employed a variety of techniques including embroidery and weaving. From 1969 to 1979, she served as head of the textile department at Konstfack, the Swedish University of Arts, Crafts and Design, and in 1974 was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts.
Inga Thyra Carola Grafström was a Swedish textile artist.
Estrid Maria Ericson was a Swedish designer, entrepreneur and founder of the interior decorating company Svenskt Tenn.
Ludmila Christeseva, is a Swedish visual artist with Belarusian roots. She was born in 1978 in Mogilev, Belarus and received a Master's of Arts degree from The Faculty of Artistic Design and Technology at the Vitebsk State Technological University in Belarus in 2001. Christeseva then moved to Sweden and joined the creative team of the Swedish fashion designer Lars Wallin.
Eva Henriette Jancke-Björk (1882–1981) was a Swedish ceramist, painter and textile artist. She became a prominent porcelain designer, working for Rörstrand, S:t Eriks Lervarufabriker and Bo fajans before establishing her own business in Mölndal near Gothenburg. She produced simply designed bowls, flower pots and tableware, both decorated and monochrome. Jancke-Björk also painted watercolours, created textile patterns and worked with glassware. Her works are in the collections of the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts and the Röhsska Museum.
Berta Elisabet Hansson (1910–1994) was a Swedish artist and educator. She is remembered as one of the country's most prominent Expressionists, especially for her depictions of children. After first working as a schoolteacher, in 1940 she attended Otte Sköld's art school and started to paint. Impressed by her work, the writer and artist Elsa Björkman-Goldschmidt arranged a solo exhibition for her in 1943. Thanks to the interest of her reviewers, she soon became a full-time artist. In the 1950s, she spent a year in South Africa where she was upset by the conditions imposed on black people. On returning to Sweden she expressed her anti-apartheid feelings in artworks and textiles. Later in life, she turned to sculpture, creating portraits of children in terracotta and bronze. Her works can be seen in several Swedish museums including Nationalmuseet and Moderna Museet.
Elsa Andrea Elisabeth Björkman-Goldschmidt (1888–1982) was a Swedish artist and writer who was active in Sweden and Austria. After attending Stockholm's Art Academy, she worked as an engraver and etcher. In 1916, while assisting the Red Cross in Russia, she met her future husband, the Austrian surgeon Waldemar Goldschmidt. They married in Vienna where she was involved with Save the Children and started working as a correspondent for the Swedish press. In 1938, anti-Semitism forced the couple to move to Sweden where she published a number of books about her life in Vienna.
Kerstin Abram-Axelsson née Nilsson; was a Swedish artist, debater, and social activist, who primarily expressed herself through various paintings and graphic arts. Her work has been shown in exhibitions throughout Europe, the United States, Mexico, and the Soviet Union.
Gertrud Paulina Santesson was a Swedish artist and sculptor. Santesson's monumental sculptures and intimate portraits of her contemporaneous women artists are regarded as her greatest creative triumphs.
Annie Bergman was a Swedish artist, writer, and children's book author.
Vivi Sylwan was a Swedish textile historian and textile curator at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg.
Elsa Danson Wåghals was a Swedish visual artist, known for painting and sculpture.
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