Signhild Häller’s miniature scenes

Textile artist Signhild Häller (1896-1978) had an interesting hobby. She collected dolls from all over the world. She was a much-travelled person and over the years she amassed a large collection of dolls. Apart from dolls, she also purchased various interior furnishings in miniature. Around 1950, she began documenting different settings on a 1/10 scale. This was how the term ‘Signhild Häller’s Miniature Scenes’ came into being.

She was very much involved in social issues and she wrote poems and articles on a variety of subjects. Here we can see a selection of the miniature scenes dating from 1967 onwards, which she subsequently donated to the City Library. Prior to this, the scenes were taken on various exhibition tours around Sweden, and Häller was lauded everywhere for her expert creations.

Häller’s miniature scenes depict different handicraft settings and eras. She also created motifs from Elsa Beskow’s picture books. These include Peter in Blueberry Land, Children of the Forest and Peter and Lotta. The children’s song Mother’s Little Olle, by Alice Tegnér, is also depicted in one of the scenes. Häller explains in the document En värld i miniatyr (A World in Miniature) about the difficulty of creating a suitably small bear.

A setting well known to all the people of Gothenburg is Kungstorget, with its market hall and outdoor market. In one particular scene, Häller shows what commerce was like there around the period 1890-1910. At that time, Bazar Alliance and the street markets still existed.