ArtistSwedish
Herman Fogelin
2 active items
Herman Fogelin was born on 29 July 1947 in Uddevalla on the west coast of Sweden, a region whose maritime character - its light, fishing culture, and wild coastline - runs as a quiet thread through much of his work. He grew up far from the major art institutions, but his path to ceramics was direct and committed: he enrolled at Konstindustriskolan in Gothenburg in 1970, studying until 1974 under teachers that included Carl-Harry Stålhane, the stoneware master whose influence shaped a generation of Swedish ceramic artists.
Fogelin spent virtually his entire working life in Gothenburg, centred in the Kvarnberget district. His output encompassed a wide range: richly coloured stoneware vessels built with faience technique, bold sgraffito decoration, and from the 1980s onward, sculptural work in coarse chamotte clay, concrete, and ceramic tile. The figurative impulse was constant - fish, animals, and the human form appear across his work in ways that owe something to the lush decorative world of Finnish ceramicist Birger Kaipiainen, whom Fogelin acknowledged as an artistic inspiration. Yet Fogelin's touch was distinctly his own: earthy, sometimes rough, drawn to the paradox of heavy material made expressive.
He was a committed community builder as well as a studio artist. Around forty years before his death he co-founded Galleri Lerverk in Gothenburg, a gallery devoted to ceramics and glass that became an important meeting point for craft practitioners in the region. He taught at Konstindustriskolan and at KV Konstskola, and was named an honorary member of Lerverk in recognition of his long engagement with the institution.
Public commissions brought his work into daily life across Gothenburg. His ceramics feature in the Lundbytunneln, at Gårda fire station, and at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. The research library at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm also holds a Fogelin work. These commissions were substantial enough to place his name firmly in the city's visual landscape.
The quality of his work was recognized formally in 2010, when he received the cultural prize of Göteborgs Spårvägar - the city's tram company - and a tram was numbered in his honour. His work was shown at international venues including the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle and Keramion in Frechen, Germany, as well as at home at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg. He is represented in the permanent collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.
Fogelin died on 20 November 2020 in Gothenburg. A memorial exhibition was held at Galleri Lerverk in the summer of 2021. On Auctionist, his 27 items are predominantly ceramics sold through Göteborgs Auktionsverk and Stockholms Auktionsverk Göteborg. Recorded prices are modest - a signed stoneware fish sculpture achieved SEK 1,000, a stoneware goblet/vase pair SEK 850 - reflecting the secondary market for his smaller pieces rather than the scale of his public and institutional work.