Wilhelm Kåge
Covered by droit de suite
Purchasing info
Image rights
The artworks in this database are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the permission of the rights holders. The artworks are reproduced in this database with a license from Bildupphovsrätt.
For condition report contact specialist
a "Farsta" stoneware sculpture of a 'dragon fish', Gustavsberg studio, Sweden 1950's.
Turquoise blue glaze, the fens with studio stamps, FARSTA and signed KÅGE. Height ca 49 cm, length ca 56 cm, width 21,5 cm.
Firing cracks to interior.
Literature
Nils Palmgren, "Wilhelm Kåge konstnär och hantverkare" Nordisk Rotogravyr, Stockholm 1953. Compare the dragon fish sculptures, "Nya Farsta-pjäser", illustrated from an exhibition at the National museum in Stockholm 1953, p 223.
Gisela Eronn, "Wilhelm Kåge - Keramikens mästare", Prisma 2006, see this dragon fish illustrated p 93.
More information
After the year 1949, when Stig Lindberg took over Kåge's role as Gustavsberg's artistic leader, Kåge finally got the possibility to develop as a ceramic artist. In 1953, Kåge was invited by the National Museum to show his artistic work at a large retrospective and critically acclaimed exhibition. Among the "new Farsta pieces", Kåge exhibited a number of large u-shaped sculptures, so-called "dragon fishes".
Designer
Wilhelm Kåge was a Swedish artist, painter, and ceramicist. Between 1917 and 1949, he worked as artistic director at Gustavsberg porcelain factory.
Kåge studied at Valand konstskola in Gothenburg and later in Copenhagen, where he got to know artist Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (GAN) and became familiar with modern art. He studied graphic art in Munich and began his artistic career by designing posters for theaters and exhibitions. When Gustavsberg needed new products for the home Exhibition at Liljevalch in 1917, Kåge was hired. He developed 30 different tableware, colorful faience, stoneware, and series such as Carrara, Surrea, and Våga. In 1942, Kåge developed Gustavsberg's studio together with designer Stig Lindberg. The studio became an aesthetic laboratory for objets d'art.
At the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930, Kåge presented Gustavsberg's future sales success "Argenta", a series of objet d'art glazed mainly in green but also in red, blue, brown, and celadon green and painted with various silver decorations according to Kåge's sketches.