Craft Art
As the mission of the Art Museum is to reflect the island’s visual arts, a large collection of craft art has been acquired by the museum over the years. At the same time, many of the museum’s activities also target craft art.
The enlargement of the museum in 2003 provided space to set up a special exhibition area for craft art from the permanent collection, and craft art is on an equal footing with pictorial art as part of the changing exhibitions. Each year, the museum joins forces with the Glass and Ceramic School in Nexø to hold the graduation exhibition for the year’s graduates – budding glass artists and ceramists.
The collection of craft art at Bornholm Art Museum reflects the abundance of craft art that has typified the island for centuries. In the past, these endeavours were especially based on the island’s deposits of fine clay. As early as the Middle Ages, Bornholm potters were selling pottery throughout the Baltic Sea region. In the 1900s, a number of cottage industries arose, including Hjorths Fabrik, which has now been converted into a demonstration ceramics museum in Rønne. A number of families are at the forefront of craft art’s history on Bornholm, including the Hjorth, Vasegaard, Munch-Petersen and Høm families, who have allowed these craft-art traditions to be passed down over the generations. The milieu around Bornholm’s Free Workshops in the 1960s also helped to attract new craft artists to the island.
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