Sigrid Hjertén

Sigrid Hjertén was born in Sundsvall in 1885, the daughter of Svante and Maria Hjertén. When Sigrid was two and a half years old, her mother passed away. Her father, who was a lawyer, later remarried Tora Östberg, and the family moved to Stockholm in 1897. Tora Östberg was the sister of the architect Ragnar Östberg, who, among other things, designed Stockholm City Hall. Ragnar Östberg developed a close relationship with Sigrid, and when she was accepted as a student at the Higher School of Arts, Crafts and Design, with textiles as her main subject, Sigrid occasionally assisted Östberg's architectural office with orders. In her book "Woman in the Avant-Garde," Cavalli-Björkman writes the following about this tapestry: 'In the archives at Kulturen in Lund, there is information that mr Ahlmark, who collaborated with Ragnar Östberg at the design of the City Hall in Stockholm, owned a furniture piece designed by Östberg with marquetry by Sigrid Hjertén. The archive also contains a picture of a tapestry with plant motifs owned by Ahlmark, designed by Sigrid and woven in 1907.' The archives in Lund also state that the tapestry was sold at an auction in Stockholm in 1978.