Pauline Fjelde

Norwegian artist, embroider and painter

1861-1923

By Svetlana Prosviryak lanaprosviryak@yahoo.no

Bio Data

1861 – born in Ålesund, Møre og

Romsdal county, Norway

1887 – immigrated with her family to the US

Family of artists

Jacob Fjelde

Sculptor

Pauline Fjelde

Paul Fjelde

Sculptor and educator

Rolf G. Fjelde

Playwright and poet

siblings

Early Life

the sixth child in the family

showed an early interest in drawing

and painting

her father was a furniture designer and

wood carver and set a high standard

of craftsmanship for his children

a crippling disease at the age of 12

which resulted in permanent curvature

The family began dividing in 1871

First job

Needlework instructor in Copenhagen

until1887

She stayed with her brother

Jacob, who studied there

Her sister Thomane also followed

them there

Moving to America

Lila Nelson in Norwegian

Textile Letter

Back to Europe

Aims:

To study weaving

To begin Arts and Crafts movement

among the Norwegian-American

To create a monument to American

Indians (based on the theme from Longfellow’s poem Hiawatha)

“Manufacture des Gobelins”

- A Tapestry

factory in Paris

• Pauline studied

gobelin weaving

there

Arts and Crafts Movement

1860 – 1910

International design movement

Stood for traditional craftsmanship

Simple forms

Anti-Industry: for hand-made

production

“This Society was incorporated for the purpose ofpromoting artistic work in all branches of handicraft. Ithopes to bring Designers and Workmen into mutuallyhelpful relations, and to encourage workmen toexecute designs of their own. It endeavors tostimulate in workmen an appreciation of the dignityand value of good design; to counteract the popularimpatience of Law and Form, and the desire for over-ornamentation and specious originality. It will insistupon the necessity of sobriety and restraint, orordered arrangement, of due regard for the relationbetween the form of an object and its use, and ofharmony and fitness in the decoration put upon it”.

William Morris,

the leader of Arts and Crafts movement

Pauline Fjelde within Arts and Crafts Movement Embroidery

Textile art

Gobelins

Daughters of Norway

Daughters of Norway

The organization first appeared in Washington in 1897 as a women’s lodge of The Sons of Norway

It incorporated all Norwegian immigrants in America

The meetings were held in Norwegian Pauline joined this organization in 1910

and took active part in promoting it During the World War I Pauline and her

sister joined the Red Cross and were helping people in occupied Norway via the DN’s network

“Daughters of Norway… This

organization is like a family to me. Far

from my homeland, I have only two

things to protect me from losing myself – my weaving and my friends in the

Daughters of Norway”

Pauline Fjelde, 1913

Nowadays, The Daughters of Norway

community still exists, and one of the

lodges in Minnesota is named after Pauline Fjelde

Emily Baker, in MINNpost

Pauline’s Legacy

Banners for Norwegian organizations

(including DN)

“Hiawatha” and “The Animal Kingdom”

tapestries

Minnesota flag

Works on display at the Minneapolis

Institute of the Arts

Permanent collection in Vesterheim

Norwegian-American Museum in Iowa

Paulina’s Works

Minnesota flag“Sisters Pauline and Thomane Fjelde, immigrants to Minnesota fromNorway and respected needleworkers, were contracted to producethe actual prototype flag. The Fjelde sisters did such a fine job of itthat the Minnesota flag earned a gold medal for embroidery at theChicago exposition”

Matt Anderson from Minnesota Historical Society

Resources used

A Forgotten Artist Remembered (an article by Lila Nelson in Norwegian Textile letter) http://www.placeography.org/images/0/06/Mdougla--nortl1104.pdf

MNHS website (Minnesota Historical Archive)http://discussions.mnhs.org/collections/2008/07/minnesotas-first-state-flag/

Minnesota Post Archive http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2011/05/state-flag-prototype-hiawatha-celebrating-pauline-fjelde-and-her-embroidery

Website of Vesterheim Museumhttp://collections.vesterheim.org/items/browse/3?collection=3