By Kirsten Toftegaard, head of the fashion and textile collection at Designmuseum Danmark
Clothbound
Covers block printing, screenprinting, and digital textile printing
Features Marie Gudme Leth, Helga Foght, Ruth Hull, Dorte Raaschou, Ingeborg Cock-Clausen, Axel Salto, Grete Ehs Østergaard, and contemporary textile artists
Based on the Designmuseum Danmark collection

By the early 20th century, printing on fabric had nearly been forgotten in Denmark. In the late 1920s it was revived as an artisanal practice, mostly by women, and it largely remains a women’s craft today. This book follows the craft from early Danish artisans pressing patterns with carved blocks, to the screenprinting still practiced in independent workshops, to digital prints made by industry or on an ink-jet printer. Along the way it shows how printed textiles found their way into everyday life, from clothing to furniture. It’s essential reading for designers, quilters, sewists, and anyone who has bought a tea towel purely for the pattern.

Some of the names will be familiar from other corners of Danish design. Axel Salto, for example, is best known for his sculptural ceramics. Marie Gudme Leth, often called the mother of Danish textile printing, helped bring screenprinting to Denmark in the 1930s. Keep the book on the coffee table, and the cover alone counts as decor.