SAXBO STONEWARE
Nathalie Krebs
Copenhagen: Herlev [1950]. Exhibition catalogue first edition. Text in English. Octavo. Yapped photo illustrated wrappers. 30 pp. 16 black and white photographs. Short illustrated essays, biography, exhibition and collection lists. Fragile book with spine wear to heel and crown, otherwise a very good or better copy. Rare.
6.25 x 9.75 softcover exhibition catalogue with 30 pages and 16 black and white photographs. English text contributions by Viggo Steen Møller, Nils Palmgren, Sigurd Schultz, Åke Stavenow, and Ingvar Bergström.
The Saxbo Pottery was established in 1930 by Nathalie Krebs, who had previously worked at Bing & Grøndahl. She was trained as a civil engineer and chemist. Eva Staehr-Nielsen joined her in 1932 and together they made Saxbo into the most important independent small pottery in Denmark. Krebs developed the glazes and Staehr-Nielsen created the shapes. Several generations of Danish potters worked there and helped to establish the classic Saxbo style of simple stoneware shapes and oriental style glazes. The pottery closed in 1968.
Johanne Nathalie Krebs (Danish, 1895 – 1978 in Copenhagen) was employed at the Bing & Grøndahl between 1919 and 1929, where she worked with ceramist Gunnar Nylund.
In 1929 she and Nylund founded the company Nylund & Krebs, who rented the potter Patrick Nordström's workshop in Islev, Copenhagen. The company exhibited at Bo in Copenhagen and Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm in the autumn of 1930, as well as in Helsinki. When Nylund was hired as artistic director at Rörstrand in 1931, Krebs founded Saxbo stentøj in Gladsaxe, where she produced serial stoneware. She experimented with copper and iron glaze on simple stoneware shapes and reached results that gave her an international reputation.
From 1932 ceramist Eva Stæhr-Nielsen was tied to the workshop as a designer, and Krebs also collaborated with Edith Sonne Bruun. Saxbo was shut down in 1968. In 1937 she was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat award, and in 1951 the Prince Eugen Medal.