(Exhibition text in English)
’I have always had free rein. The company has never asked for commercial prints.’
Very few companies in the Swedish textile industry have run their own printing works. Instead, they would commission a specialised company to do the printing. Larger textile companies like Mölnlycke, Rydboholm and Borås Wäfveri used roller printing as early as around 1900. Textile printing as a craft was mainly carried out by smaller companies. Printed fabrics went through a revival in the middle of the 20th century. The surge in housing construction in combination with the expansion in the public sector led to boosted demand for soft furnishings.
Borås Wäfveri opened its new textile wet-processing plant in the mid-1960s. At the time, it was one of Europe’s state-of-the-art facilities, and incorporated bleaching, dyeing and pattern printing. New, automatic screen-printing machines allowed for wider fabrics with larger repeat sizes to be printed. Most of Sven Fristedt’s patterns were printed there.