8th October 2023 – 11th August 2024
Artist and author Edmund de Waal will curate an exhibition of acclaimed Danish ceramicist Axel Salto (1889 – 1961), considered one of the greatest masters of
20th Century ceramic art.
The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Edmund de Waal, CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark, and Kunstsilo, Norway. It opens in Denmark in October 2023, at the Kunstsilo in September 2024, and at The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 2025.
Born in Copenhagen in 1889, Axel Salto was a radical polymathic figure who crossed boundaries from one discipline to another, producing an extraordinary
body of ceramic work alongside paintings, wood-cuts, drawings, book illustration, and textiles. After studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where he became intrigued by modernism and a progressive aesthetic, Salto travelled to Paris, where he met Picasso and Matisse. An accomplished poet and author, he founded the influential Danish art journal Klingen (The Blade), an important forum for critical thinking in Denmark.
Salto is internationally renowned for his highly individual and expressive stoneware inspired by organic forms, characterised by budding, sprouting, and fluted surface textures that appear to ripple and burst with life. This exhibition will bring together a significant number of Salto’s ceramic works from the collection of CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Denmark, and The Tangen Collection at Kunstsilo, the world’s largest collection of Nordic modernist art. Salto’s ceramics will be shown alongside lesser-known and unseen works on paper, illustrations, writings and textiles, with a major new installation by de Waal reflecting on Salto’s enduring influence.
Edmund de Waal said:
“Axel Salto is one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. He created a unique body of ceramic work that continues to fascinate me. His sculptures seem to be on the point of change: glazes are caught in flux. Vases swell as if to burst. He cared about the ways that patterns change course, shift energies, how an animal becomes a person, a man metamorphoses into a stag. Ovid ran powerfully through his life. That moment of change, transformation, is the moment when poetry occurs.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated book, published by Forlaget PRESS exploring the dialogue between the two artists. The book contains a rich selection of excerpts from Axel Salto’s writings, a new essay by Edmund de Waal in which he investigates the concept of metamorphosis and the fusing of clay and words, an essay by co-curator and writer Sanne Flyvbjerg as well as her conversation with Edmund de Waal in which they explore Salto’s practice and the artistic encounter.
The book is in English and is available at CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art. For international buyers, find out more about the book here: CLAY Shop
The project is made possible by a generous grant from The AKO Foundation,
a London-based philanthropic foundation.
Exhibition design by Hutchison Kivotos Architects.
Thanks to
15. Juni Fonden
Bestles Fond
Danmarks Nationalbanks Jubilæumsfond af 1968
Den Faberske Fond
Dronning Margrethes og Prins Henriks Fond
Grosserer L.F. Foghts Fond
Hoffmann & Husmans Fond
Minister Erna Hamiltons Legat for videnskab og kunst
Ny Carlsbergfondet
Toyota-Fonden
Carl Hansen & Søn
For support for the national exhibition at CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art
Edmund de Waal surrounded by Axel Salto’s work at the
Clay Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark.
Photo by Peter Leth-Larsen
© Axel Salto/VISDA