Elna Mygdal

Elna Mygdal was a Danish textile artist, museum curator and writer. She is remembered in particular for her interest in Hedebo embroidery and for her collection of folk costumes and folk textiles. In 1930, she published the authoritative two-volume Amagerdragter: Vævninger og Syninger on the history of costumes and textiles from Amager, an island adjacent to Copenhagen.

Biography

Born on 2 June 1868 in the Nørre-Snede Municipality, Mygdal was the daughter of Jes Mygdal and his wife Charlotte . She attended Copenhagen's Arts and Crafts School for Women, where she studied embroidery and free-hand drawing. She also learned weaving at John Lenning's school in Norrköping, Sweden, graduating in 1895. She studied painting in the women's section of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, earning a painting diploma in 1904.
During her studies, she taught painting, drawing, design and handicrafts at the Arts and Crafts School. In 1897, in connection with an exhibition in Stockholm where she won a silver medal, she met