The Finding Aid of the Lena Torslow Hansen Papers 0205

Anastasia Armendariz

Pepperdine University. Special Collections and University Archives.

October 2022

24255 Pacific Coast Highway

Malibu 90263-4786

Business Number: (310) 506-4434

Fax Number: (310) 506-4117

kelsey.knox@pepperdine.edu

URL: https://library.pepperdine.edu/collections/boone-special-collections-university-archives.htm

Contributing Institution: Pepperdine University. Special Collections and University Archives.

Title: Lena Torslow Hansen Papers

Identifier/Call Number: 0205

Physical Description: .21 Linear Feet 1 Half Hollinger Box

Date (inclusive): 1980 - 2021

Abstract: Lena Torslow Hansen is a Danish ceramic artist and Scandinavian arts advocate. In 1981,the Franciscan Friars of the Serra Retreat commissioned Torslow Hansen to design installations of fire-salvaged Malibu Tile at the Serra Retreat. This collection documents Lena Torslow Hansen's work from planning diagrams and research on the Serra Retreat, Malibu Potteries, and the Adamson House at the Serra to photographs of the installed tile.

Physical Location: PAYSON 360 Row 3

Language of Material: English .

Conditions Governing Access

Advance notice required for access.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was transferred to Pepperdine Libraries Special Collections and Archives by Lena Torslow Hansen in two parts. The first donation was of 140 slide film photographs in color. The second donation was of Torslow Hansen's workbook.

Arrangement

The Lena Torslow Hansen Papers are arranged in the order in which they were received from Torslow Hansen (slide film photographs and then the workbook). Interfiled materials in the notebook were removed for preservation concerns, and refoldered in original order.

Preferred Citation

[Box/folder# or item name], Lena Torslow Hansen Papers, Collection no. 0205, Malibu Historical Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Pepperdine University.

Processing Information

This collection was arranged and described by Anastasia Armendariz, September 2022.

Scope and Contents

These papers contain documentation of Lena Torslow Hansen's tile work for the Serra Retreat. In 1981 the Franciscans of the Serra Retreat commissioned Torslow Hansen to select pieces of unset Malibu Potteries tiles that had survived a prior 1970 fire for installation throughout the retreat center and grounds. After gathering, cleaning, and identifying surviving tiles that were still suitable for use, Torslow Hansen designed and executed their arrangements.

This collection contains 140 photographic slides documenting Torslow Hansen's installation of the tiles at Serra. It also features her work book, which consists of a notebook, photographs, news clippings, diagrams, record of billable hours, and design sketches. The collection also includes clippings and ephemera related to her research for, and enduring interest in, Malibu tiles at both Serra Retreat and the Adamson House for the commission. Torslow Hansen also shared photographs of work by, and clippings related to, La Jolla tile designer Theresa Yianilos. Yianilos designed part of the Serra Retreat entrance.

Biographical / Historical

Lena Torslow Hansen is a Danish ceramic artist and advocate for Scandinavian art and artists. A long-time Malibu resident, Torslow Hansen was commissioned by Father Ron Colloty at the Serra Retreat to design and install a group of Malibu Tiles in 1981. She worked on this project through the summer of 1983.

A major fire in 1970 had destroyed the western part of Serra Retreat, which included all of the aboveground portions of the original structure of May K. Rindge's unfinished hilltop mansion. Despite the scale of the destruction, many uninstalled tiles from the original Malibu Potteries factory were found intact, albeit smoke-damaged, in a closed basement room of the mansion. A portion of these titles were originally intended for the mansion before construction ceased. Others were unsold tiles that had been transported up the hill after the permanent closure of Malibu Potteries in 1932.

Torslow Hansen was responsible for inventorying, cleaning, and then determining what tiles were in good enough condition for use. With input from Father Ron, Torslow Hansen created designs for installations throughout the Serra Retreat grounds. Her first design project was a "carpet" of decorative tiles for the walkway leading to the dining room along with a sweeping tile installation along the wall at the walkway's end. Torslow Hansen's signature tile is worked into the front right side of the "carpet."

Torslow Hansen's collage design also adorn the stairway and entrance to the administration building, the kitchen wall, the bell tower at the upper plaza, stairs leading up to the dining room patio, the west patio fireplace-turned-planter, the exterior of the dining room windows, and the center fountain and tree planters of the lower courtyard. The large tiles incorporated into the lower courtyard tree planters were from the original Rindge mansion large Persian rug installation. Some of these were still attached to the concrete they were initially set in on the grand gallery floor.

Lena Torslow Hansen's final piece of work for the Serra Retreat project was an entrance sign on Serra Road. This sign was completed in collaboration with ceramicist Theresa Yianilos. Concurrently with the Serra Retreat project, Torslow Hansen served as the Chairperson of Visual Art for Scandinavia Today from 1982 to 1983. In this role, she initiated and placed 29 exhibitions in Southern California museums and university galleries. Torslow Hansen was also instrumental in bringing the exhibition "Golden Age of Danish Painting" to the LACMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the mid-1990s.

Torslow Hansen also organized and curated "Broad Spectrum: Contemporary Los Angeles Painters and Sculptors" for the Los Angeles Olympic Cultural Festival. She received a fall 1985 Fellowship for Arts Managers from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and in 1990, Torslow Hansen founded the Scandinavian American Arts Foundation (SAAF). SAAF was a non-profit institution that promoted and supported Scandinavian contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States.

Torslow Hansen's ceramic artistry has been exhibited at numerous museums and galleries, and she is a practiced and ready lecturer on the subject. Since 1986 she has led ART: CONSULTING: SCANDINAVIA, a book importer and distributor focusing on works related to Scandinavia.

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