DescriptionSigne Persson-Melin opened her own workshop in Malmö in 1951 after studying at the Higher College of Applied Art in Stockholm and the School of Applied Arts in Copenhagen. Together with the textile artist Ingrid Dessau she exhibited a number of unique works at Galerie Moderne in Stockholm in 1953. Her pottery was something new entirely. The traditional elegance in Swedish ceramics with opaque glazes was forced to make way for the clay’s own expression, and the hand’s, with glazed areas contrasted by unglazed in the same vessels. At the H55 expo in Helsingborg during the summer of 1955, a great deal of attention was attracted by the spice pots Persson-Melin made from brown clay, partially covered in a white glaze and completed with a cork stopper. The name of the spice was stamped into the clay before firing using old lead typesetting blocks from an abandoned printing press. Persson-Melin’s keen interest in form is tangible in her tea kettles from the 1950s and 60s. Her kettles, made from yellow-fired stoneware in Denmark or by Höganäs in Sweden, were in most cases unglazed.
/Anders Rosdahl, 2016