Cooper Hewitt says...
The group Suomen Käsityön Ystävät, or Friends of Finnish Handicraft, was founded in 1879 in Helsinki, Finland by the landscape painter Fanny Churberg. The primary model for the group was the Swedish craft organization, Handarbetets Vänner (Friends of Handicraft).[1] Churberg recognized the increasing erasure of Finnish craft traditions at the end of the nineteenth century, and sought to create an association that would provide more creative opportunities for female artisans.[2] The initial phase of creative production associated with the group involved handwoven textiles that looked towards the past for inspiration, incorporating traditional Finnish patterns and motifs. By 1920, this focus shifted to include industrial production through collaborations with professional designers. The group also offered do-it-yourself textile kits and materials for consumers to purchase and learn methods of craft production within their own homes. The Finnish Handicrafts specialized in the creation of textiles for interiors that decorated commercial and domestic spaces in the forms of rugs, curtains, wall hangings, and tablecloths. With the gradual transition to industrial production, the group gained prominence for their selection to produce textiles for high-profile public commissions from the Finnish government. This included a major claim in the manufacture of flags for the Finnish army and the creation of over two thousand feet of fabric for the redecoration of the Parliament House in Helsinki.[3]
Despite the notoriety resulting from industrially-driven commissions, it was in the production of traditional ryijy (woven Finnish long-tufted tapestry or knotted-pile carpet hanging) rugs and tapestries that the group created an identity for itself. These types of textiles are primarily associated with Finnish craft, and in continuing a long tradition of craft production the Handicraft organization preserved a key facet of the country’s cultural heritage.[4] The organization also sponsored competitions that highlighted the work of young textile designers who had not yet established themselves within their creative field.[5] Besides the revival of old creative traditions, the group also unified the talents of both weavers and textile designers to realize a unified visual concept, including Eliel Saarinen, Lotta Ring, Rut Bryk, Armas Lindgren, and Helene Schjerfbeck, among others.[6] Since the works of the Friends of Finnish Handicraft form a major part of Finnish design history, the textiles associated with the group now form a major part in Designmuseo collections in Helsinki. In addition, the company still exists today, offering woven household textiles and instructional craft lectures.
1. Leena Svinhufvud, “Handwoven Fabrics by the Yard: Unveiling the Modern Design Industry of the Interwar Period,” in Scandanavian Design: Alternative Histories, ed. Kjetil Fallan (London: Berg, 2012), 59.
2. Charlotte Ashby, "Nation Building and Design: Finnish Textiles and the Work of the Friends of Finnish Handicrafts," Journal of Design History 23, no. 4 (2010): 354-55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40958919.
3. Svinhufvud, “Handwoven Fabrics by the Yard,” 59-61.
4. Susan Day, Art Deco and Modernist Carpets (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002), 77.
5. Marianne Aav, “Armi Ratia and the Duality of a Design Enterprise,” in Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashion, Architecture, ed. Marianne Aav (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 29-30.
6. Aav, “Armi Ratia,” 42.
7. “Suomen Käsityön Ystävät,” Suomen Käsityön Ystävät, https://www.suomenkasityonystavat.fi/.
