Hannah Ryggen

Ryggen wove the news. On a farm by a Norwegian fjord she spun, dyed and wove her own wool, often without a preliminary cartoon, and used the loom to attack fascism as it happened: Ethiopia, 1935, shows Mussolini with a spear through his head, and other tapestries confront Hitler, Franco and the occupation of Norway. Her husband Hans Ryggen, a painter, appears in several works. Her large tapestry We Are Living on a Star hung in the government building hit by the 2011 Oslo bombing, survived, and became a national symbol.