Swedish-born in 1894, Hannah Ryggen was a pacifist, a feminist, and a leftist. She was also a textile artist who made tapestries that were not shy about what she saw as evil in the world. Looming in her work were bad guys from history—Mussolini, Hitler, Quisling, you get the idea. One of her pieces, Ethiopia (1935), was shown next to Picasso’s Guernica at the Paris World’s Fair of 1937. The Schirn in Frankfurt is taking a giant step: it’s the first German museum to exhibit Ryggen’s anti-fascist vision, here represented by 25 monumental tapestries. —L.J.