Tapestry weaver Ann-Mari Kornerup (1918-2006) frequently depicted scenes of everyday life. Many include children. Kornerup was born in Stockholm, Sweden and studied at the Swedish School of Textiles, Borås. She moved to Denmark after her marriage to Danish architect Jørgen K. Ebbe and established a weaving workshop in Charlottenlund, outside of Copenhagen, in 1951.
A dedicated advocate of tekstilsløyd(textile handcrafts) in the Danish educational system, Kornerup was deeply invested in children’s creative development. She served as teacher and artistic mentor in experimental needlework education in her local primary school, and contributed to graduate school curricula in needlework at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts (now the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts). Many of her primary school lesson plans are recorded in her lesson book, Embroidery for Children, published in Danish in 1969 and English in 1971.[1]
Kornerup also enjoyed international recognition as an artist. She received the silver medal at the 1946 Venice Biennale and is listed as a Danish artist of note in a book on Scandinavian design published in New York in 1961.[2] She produced tapestries for civic, commercial, and religious buildings including the Danish Parliament, the Danish National Bank, and Roskilde Cathedral. This piece, Grandmother and Children with Tulips, was donated to this collection by former House Beautiful editor Elizabeth Gorden and exhibited in the Cooper Union’s 1965 exhibition, “The Wonders of Thread.”
Mae Colburn is a master’s student in the Parsons-Cooper Hewitt History of Decorative Arts and Design program. Her focus is textiles.
[1] Kornerup, Ann-Mari. Embroidery for Children (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, 1969).
[2] Ulf Hård af Segerstad. Scandinavian Design (New York: L. Stuart, 1961).