Shiva, Tiveden and forest branches

In the early 1970s, Lennart Rodhe was commissioned to design curtains for the Kulturhuset auditorium in Stockholm. As these works were to be block printed on velvet, partly to keep the costs down, the artist had the opportunity to explore and develop his long-standing interest in ornamentation, and especially Islamic patterns. Numerous print variations were created, but the main focus in the work Shiva is a version that suggests both oriental patterns and the play of light in Swedish forests. The works Shiva and Columns, which no longer exist, were installed in 1976. Rodhe continued to elaborate on Shiva for many years, creating many new works in various techniques, paintings such as Garden of Eden (c 1991), drawings, prints (Tiveden blue, 1987) and a few hand-tufted carpets. Rodhe found the pattern technique in Islamic art. But it was the dense coniferous forest that inspired what became one of his most familiar motifs in his late oeuvre, with titles such as Forest (1979) and The Forest Reflects Itself (1977). The collection includes many works on this theme, along with a few smaller ones on the theme of Tiveden (Tiveden I , Tiveden II, Tiveden III). The same basic pattern can be varied endlessly in both colours and how the pieces are combined. Together with Kasthall, Rodhe designed a few carpets with these patterns, including Garden of Eden, 1991, och Yellow Lightening Forest (1989), of which a few are in the Foundation’s collection.