Marit Tingleff
Marit Tingleff: the dish as an artistic surface
Marit Tingleff is a Norwegian ceramic artist, born in Ringerike in 1954. She studied at Bergen School of Arts and Crafts from 1974 to 1977 and opened her own studio in 1977. Store norske leksikon connects her work with Norwegian pottery traditions.
Structure, weight and painterly surfaces
For Tingleff, a dish becomes a surface for colour and movement. Kode’s studio visit describes her large earthenware works, coil-built over a flexible sand mould. She removes the mould when the clay supports itself. Slips provide colour, while cracks arising during production can become part of the expression.
Her relationship with ceramic history is clear in Faience series and Standing tiles, exhibited at Kunstnerforbundet in 2023. They combine faience's coarser character, curved dishes and flowing slip. Copper, chromium and cobalt provide different colour ranges. Lifting the works during application lets gravity direct the coloured clay across their surfaces. Read the exhibition presentation.
Three specific works
Øvelse med kinesisk pensel I, from 2007, is a decorated, glazed dish built with coils. KORO gives its width as 172 cm and describes it as one of her last dishes in Norwegian blue clay. It forms part of the Government Representation Buildings' art collection.
Nasjonalmuseet records Panel, resting/standing II, from 2014, as modelled earthenware with slip and transparent glaze. At 217 cm high and a recorded weight of 250 kg, it shows how far the ceramic surface can move beyond an ordinary table object.
Vekst, from 2017, belongs to De fire store. The record's descriptive text specifies modelled earthenware with flowing slip and glaze, and gives a width of 210 cm. These details show that scale, structure and presentation are integral to the work.
Studio and teaching
Tingleff was professor and head of ceramics at Oslo National Academy of the Arts from 2013 to 2016. She has a studio in Hønefoss. Her works are held by Nasjonalmuseet, Designmuseum Danmark and the Victoria & Albert Museum, among others. The 2026 catalogue presentation for Into the Green confirms these details.
Documenting an individual work
A title, dimensions and purchase or exhibition documentation offer more precise evidence than colour alone. A small dish and a monumental panel each need their own description. Working in series does not establish a particular edition size or show that two works are identical.
For larger works, document the back, edges, supports and wall fixings. Distinguish original process marks from later breaks where possible. Tingleff's artistic use of cracks does not prove that a particular crack is original. Information about restoration and earlier mounting should therefore be included when available.
