Ragnhild (Lalla) Hvalstad (1875–1962) was a Norwegian painter and

ceramist Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is a visual art. While ...

. In 1894, she was one of ten artists who participated in the

Vågåsommeren Vågåsommeren or the Vågå Summer was a Norwegian artists' collective which came together in Vågå, Innlandet County, in 1894. It consisted of ten painters, all of whom had spent the previous year studying art at Harriet Backer's school in Kri ...

artists' colony in

Vågå Vågå () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of ...

, Innlandet County. After painting portraits, interiors and landscapes, in 1922 she changed her focus to

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

, studying in

Faenza Faenza (, ; ; or ; ) is an Italian city and comune of 59,063 inhabitants in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated southeast of Bologna. Faenza is home to a historical manufacture of majolica-ware glazed earthenware pottery, known ...

, Italy. On returning to Norway, she opened her own workshop in

Bestum Bestum is a neighbourhood in Ullern in Oslo, Norway. Before the residential area arose, Bestum was mainly an agricultural area. The name origins from the Middle Ages. Bestum was served by a station named Bestun Station, "Bestun" and the tram stop ...

where together with she created a wide variety of pottery, frequently decorated with flowers and fruits.

Biography

Born on 7 March 1875 in

Kristiania Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022, an ...

(today's Oslo), Ragnhild Hvalstad was the daughter of the factory manager Johannes Andersen Hvalstad (1832–1922) and his wife Marie Agnete Bjørnstad (1844–1922). She studied painting in Stockholm at

Harriet Backer Harriet Backer (21 January 1845 – 25 March 1932) was a Norwegian painter who achieved recognition in her own time and was a pioneer among female artists both in the Nordic countries and in Europe generally. She is best known for her detailed ...

's school (1894–1895) and was a student of J.F. Willumsen in Copenhagen (1899–1900 and 1903). She befriended in particular her fellow art students

Alice Pihl Alice Dagny Pihl Salvesen (1869–1959) was a Norwegian painter. In 1894, she was one of ten artists who participated in the Vågåsommeren artists' colony in Vågå, Innlandet County. She was principally a portrait painter but also created mood ...

, Johanna Bugge Berge and Kris Laache. In 1894, these four joined

Kristen Holbø Kristen Holbø (13 September 1869 – 19 October 1953) was a Norway, Norwegian Painting, painter and illustrator, most noted for his landscapes. Biography He was born on Sygard Holbø in Vågå in Oppland county, Norway. He studied under Knud Be ...

, a native of

, and Halfdan Egedius, Lars Jorde,

Thorvald Erichsen Thorvald Erichsen (18 July 1868 - 23 December 1939) was a Norwegian Post-Impressionist painter; known primarily for landscapes and still-lifes. Biography Thorvald Erichsen was born at Trondheim, Norway. He was the son of Ernst Erichsen (1820-1 ...

, Alfred Hauge and Oluf Wold-Torne, all students at Backer's school, to spend the summer months in Vågå's Sygard Storvik estate in what became known as "Vågåsommeren" (the Vågå Summer). In 1897, Hvalstc painted in

Kviteseid Kviteseid is a municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the traditional districts of Vest-Telemark and Upper Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Kviteseidbyen. Other villages in Kviteseid ...

together with Kris and Oluf Wold-Torne and Erichsen. For a time, she continued painting portraits, interiors and landscapes but after her parents died in 1922, she decided to make a change. On the advice of Henrik Sørensen, she decided to turn to ceramics. She travelled to Faenza where she learnt the traditional art dating back to the 17th century. On her return in 1923, she opened a workshop in Bestum in collaboration with Lili Scheel. The two worked together for almost 40 years until Hvalstad died in 1962. They produced a wide variety of tableware as well as tiles and smaller works, often decorated with flowers, fruits or figures inspired by European pottery from the 18th century but frequently incorporating designs from Norwegian rose painting. Lalla Hvalstad died on 20 October 1962 in Oslo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hvalstad, Lalla 1875 births 1962 deaths Artists from Oslo 19th-century Norwegian painters 20th-century Norwegian painters Norwegian ceramists Norwegian women ceramists 20th-century Norwegian women painters