ArtistSwedish
Henning Nilsson
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Henning Sigfrid Nilsson was born on 7 October 1907 in Välinge, Skåne, into a world far removed from the ceramics workshop he would one day make his own. His path to clay was indirect - he came to it as a mature craftsman driven by curiosity about glazes rather than by any formal schooling. He began by experimenting with firings in a makeshift kiln, and what captivated him from the start was not the shaping of forms but the chemical transformation inside the oven: the deep, unpredictable reds of oxblood glaze.
In the 1940s, Nilsson became the first ceramicist in Sweden to successfully revive the oxblood glaze - a technique with roots in ancient Chinese ceramics, where iron-rich glazes fired in reduction atmospheres produce colours ranging from deep crimson to near-black. Reproducing this effect demands precise control of kiln atmosphere and temperature, and Nilsson worked through the problem largely on his own, learning to throw on the wheel by self-instruction after a brief formal course failed to hold his interest.
By 1954 he had settled in Höganäs, a town with deep ties to Swedish clay production through Höganäsbolaget, the industrial ceramics company that had operated there since the nineteenth century. Nilsson used the company's kilns when his own were insufficient, and built his studio in a community already rich with ceramic knowledge. There he formed the group Keramiker i Höganäs alongside Yngve Blixt, Ann Jansson, Claes Thell, and Brita Mellander-Jungermann. The group ran a shared exhibition hall in Höganäs and brought their work to audiences across Sweden through travelling shows.
His stoneware pieces - typically vases and bowls in clean, restrained forms - were made to carry glaze. The oxblood surface, shading from wine red through copper and liver tones, is the subject of each piece as much as its vessel function. Working from his own studio, each piece was signed and often dated, a practice that has made his output traceable through the decades.
In 1967 and 1968 Nilsson received the Statens konstnärsstipendium (the Swedish State Artist Grant), and in 1968 the Nathorst Boos stipendium. His work entered the permanent collection of Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. His sons Vincent Nilsson (born 1939) and Roger Nilsson (born 1960) both continued in ceramics, making the Nilsson workshop a three-generation story. Henning Nilsson died on 14 January 1993 in Höganäs.
On the Swedish auction market, Nilsson's stoneware appears regularly at auction houses in Skåne - Höganäs Auktionsverk, Crafoord Auktioner in Lund, Formstad Auktioner, and Helsingborgs Auktionskammare account for the bulk of his appearances. The 20 items recorded in the Auctionist database are all ceramics, with 19 catalogued as ceramics and porcelain. Prices for his oxblood-glazed vases have ranged from a few hundred SEK up to 1,565 SEK for a signed and dated piece, reflecting the modest but steady collector interest in studio ceramics from the Höganäs circle.