KunstenaarSwedish
Hans Hedberg
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Hans Hedberg was born on 25 May 1917 in Köpmanholmen, Västernorrland, Sweden. He trained first as a painter, studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, before shifting his focus to ceramics at the Instituto d'Arte della Ceramica in Faenza, Italy - one of Europe's oldest centers for the study of the medium.
In 1949 Hedberg settled in Biot, a village between Nice and Antibes in southern France with its own tradition of glassblowing and pottery. He built a kiln and established a workshop that became a meeting point for artists working in the region. Biot sat close to Vallauris, where Pablo Picasso was working in clay at the time, and Hedberg moved in the same artistic circles. He assisted a number of major figures with ceramic technique, including Picasso, Marc Chagall - who apprenticed with Hedberg for around three months - as well as Fernand Léger and Henri Matisse. Of the two most prominent, Hedberg observed that Chagall was tentative and Picasso quick and confident when picking up new techniques.
Hedberg's own output centered on large-scale stoneware and high-fired faience forms: oversized pears, apples, eggs, grapes, and vases glazed in deep blues, ochres, greens, and mottled earth tones. The scale and surface quality of these objects gave them a sculptural presence unusual for functional pottery of the period. He worked primarily from plaster molds, firing at high temperatures to achieve the dense, matte-to-satin glaze surfaces that distinguish his pieces. Each work was monogram-signed, typically "HHG" (Hans Hedberg, Glasyr - glaze).
His work entered major public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum in Stockholm, and the Musée National de Céramique in Sèvres. Hedberg lived and worked in Biot for the remainder of his life, returning periodically to Sweden, and died there on 27 March 2007.
On the Nordic auction market, Hedberg's ceramics are handled primarily by Stockholms Auktionsverk (Magasin 5), Bukowskis, and Norrlands Auktionsverk, which together account for the majority of his 46 lots on Auctionist. Ceramics make up 36 of those lots, with sculptures accounting for a further five. The strongest result in the database is a pear sculpture at 24,375 SEK; egg forms, among his most frequently traded works, typically reach 7,500-11,500 SEK, while vases have sold in the 12,000 SEK range.