Swedish Folk Art: All Tradition Is Change

Among the legacies of Sweden's diverse populace are expressive crafts and a rich folk-art tradition embodied in polychrome, carved wooden toys, furniture, and uniquely designed housewares. A wealth of these folk objects are featured in a handsome book commemorating an exhibition now traveling across the U.S. and Canada, with ethnographers, curators, and other scholars contributing essays on Swedish culture in all its diversity. Hundreds of artifacts are shown, many photographed in their natural surroundings. The vast distances that often separate the Swedish people and their traditions are exemplified by a leather-shrouded antler knife created by an artisan in the Saami lands of the Arctic Circle; while outside Stockholm, an urban garden boasts a hut that stands as a contemporary version of an ancient custom. Alice Joyce