Axel Salto (1889–1961) debuted as a painter in 1911, having studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1909–1914. While he went on to become famous for his ceramics, he experimented across media, in woodcut, drawing and textiles throughout his career.Salto visited Paris in 1916, then the cradle of the avant-garde that was developing in the wake of the First World War. It was here that he met Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Following this transformational visit, Salto returned to Denmark and founded the art journal Klingen (1917–1919) which he contributed to and edited. His writings on aesthetics formalised his impact on the contemporary Danish art world. Salto co-founded the artistic group De Fire (The Four) with fellow artists Svend Johansen, Karl Larsen, and Wilhelm Lundstrøm. The group spent time in Paris throughout the 1920s, drinking in the transformation that was unfolding in the artworld there.
Following this incubation period, Salto contributed with ceramics for a Copenhagen porcelain manufacturer at the influential Paris Exhibition of 1925. This heralded his true arrival. Between 1923 and 1950, Salto would go on to make in the region of 3,000 ceramic works. As his style solidified, Salto divided his works into three styles. The budding works have seed-like round bumps, while the sprouting motif sees these bumps grow into more prominent protrusions, finally, the fluted style is characterised by thin organic lines, mimicking the veins of leaves. As these terms suggest, for Salto, ceramics were intertwined with the unfolding processes of the natural world.Edmund de Waal (b. 1964), a contemporary writer and fellow ceramist, describes Salto’s philosophy, for Salto, ceramics are not in the past, they are in the “present…things are still moving, when you look at ceramics, you’re seeing the glaze as it melts.” Salto’s sculptures seem always to be on the verge of growing into something else.
While he initially worked with several ceramic workshops and porcelain companies, Salto settled into a collaboration with the renowned Royal Porcelain factory in Copenhagen. It was here that Salto worked with engineer HAL Madslund to create his famous green and yellow “solfatara glaze” which allowed Salto’s works to seem to stay wet, like sodden earth. Glazes continued to fascinate Salto, and he experimented relentlessly with his work.
Salto’s works are held at various centers of Nordic art and decorative arts, including the CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art in Denmark, the Kunstsilo in Norway, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.