Karin Bergoö Larsson

Lino portrait by Carine

I’m moving house, so my mind is full of ‘home-making’. This makes the Swedish Karin Bergöö Larsson my inspiration for this week. She’s probably best described as an interior designer, but she was also a master crafter and artist. Her house became an icon within the arts & crafts movement.

Karin studied as a painter, but when she met and married her husband, the painter Carl Larsson, they moved to the cottage known as Lilla Hyttnäs in Sundborn, where her father had been born, and started a family. They had eight children together.

It is here, in that rather ugly cottage, that she lifted domesticity to an art form. She crafted their home into a design house, the precursor to Swedish Modern. With her use of bright colours, bold designs and informal decoration she created almost every piece in the house. She taught herself weaving, woodworking and all other skills to create her masterpieces by hand. Often she included the children. Inspired by the surrounding countryside, she made furniture, wall hangings, bed covers, table cloths, pillows and more.

Her husband, who continued to work as a painter, captured Karin and their lovely home on canvas and brought work to the broader public. Although her style does not seem out of place to us now, at the time it was revolutionary. The home was casual, informal, gave space to children and did not adhere to existing social rules. You’ll spot that Ikea was inspired by Karin’s philosophy of interior design.

It just goes to show: craft can be design and a home can be art.

Also look up

Designing a home as a refuge and place of comfort, like Karin did, can be found in the work of others. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky designed homes for the working classes by studying what made life practical and easy – she wanted to ease their workload at home. Anne Spencer, a poet, civil rights activist and teacher, created a comfy cottage home with a beautiful garden as a refuge for African American travellers who could not stay in hotels due to segregation laws. Her home also became a salon for intellectuals, who visited regularly.

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