The textile artist Frida Hansen is the subject of the first of four university scholarships funded via the National Museum’s collaboration agreement with the Fredriksen Family Art Company (FFAC)

Frida Hansen (1855–1931) was a pioneer in Norwegian and European textile art and a major force behind the Norwegian textile renaissance of the 1890s. She is also celebrated for having developed the “transparency technique”, which involves an alternation between dense and translucent areas in a tapestry.

In her doctoral project “Frida Hansen: Weaver, Gardener, Artist, Woman”, Lexow will explore how Frida Hansen’s intense fascination with flowers and dedicated work with gardens influenced her art nouveau-inspired designs and her weaving practice.

- It is the National Museum’s collaboration agreement with the Fredriksen Family Art Company that makes these scholarships possible. They constitute a significant supplement to our current research and expertise community at the museum, while also helping to consolidate the National Museum’s position as a knowledge institution, says Director Ingrid Røynesdal at the National Museum.

The research project will offer new perspectives on Hansen’s work using theories from art history, philosophy, gender studies, and the new field of environmental humanities.

One of the perspectives that Lexow applies is ecofeminism, which merges feminism and ecology. She will consider Hansen’s art in connection with the emergence in the late 19th century of a distinct gardening culture among women that gave its adherents a sense of identity and liberation.

- It is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to immerse ourselves in Frida Hansen’s woven world of flowers. She is one of our all-time greatest artists,whose imaginative approach to art and weaving has inspired so many. It will be exciting to explore in greater depth her work and thinking and the inspiration she drew from flowers throughout her life, says Adine Lexow.

The National Museum’s mandate is to develop, conserve, research, make available and promote public knowledge about Norway’s biggest collection of art, architecture and design. The museum conducts independent research, primarily in the fields of art history, conservation, art mediation, and museology.

- Frida Hansen’s art is highly interesting. Art historian Adine Lexow’s doctoral project will take the National Museum’s collection as its starting point and contribute to our knowledge and understanding about a major Norwegian artist, who also found international recognition in her day, says Ingrid Røynesdal.


Adine Lexow
Adine Ødegård Lexow (b. 12.07.1994) completed her master’s degree on the transparent tapestries of textile artist Frida Hansen, considered in the light of contemporary art, gender theory, and ecocritical theory at the University of Oslo, spring 2022. She has worked as a freelance writer for Oslo municipality’s art collection and accepted project management responsibilities for exhibitions and for the day-to-day running of the gallery for the Queen Sonja Print Awards (QSPA) foundation.

PhD collaboration
• The National Museum has agreed on a doctorate-level collaboration with the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo, involving four PhD fellows.
• The aim of the agreement is to strengthen the institutions’ research environments and to further develop scholarly contacts between these knowledge communities.
• The scholarship recipients will follow the faculty’s PhD programme.
• The first scholarship officially begins in January 2024. Subsequent scholarships will be announced in 2024, 2026, and 2027.
• The research grants are financed through the museum’s collaboration agreement with the Fredriksen Family Art Company (FFAC).
• The National Museum is responsible for announcements relating to the PhD scholarships and the awarding of the research scholarships.