When the idea of a Nordic center for watercolour techniques was formulated, it was considered important that the museum should embrace both the traditional duties of display and preservation along with the new responsibilities inherent in a learning centre for stimulating development. In its first exhibition, the museum focuses on both of these common themes, the emphasis being on developments in Nordic art in the 20th century expressed through the medium of watercolour.&nbsp;The works have been selected in collaboration with the major national art museums of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, from where the artworks have also been loaned.Participating artists: Lauri Anttila, Olav Christopher Jenssen, Staffan Hallström, Asgrimur Jònsson, Erling Enger, Frans Widerberg, Esther Helenius, Nils von Dardel, Siri Derkert, Olli Lyytikäinen, Reidun Tordhol, Ebba Carstensen, Asger Jorn, Hjörleifur Sigurðsson, Edvard Weie, Svavar Guðnason, Per Kirkeby and Jalmari Rukokoski

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On the horizon

By exhibiting paintings by Helene Schjerfbeck from the early years of the 20th century, The Nordic Watercolour Museum chooses to cast light on a transitional period in Schjerfbeck’s art, a period full of experimentation both thematic and technical. During this period watercolour played a particularly important role in the development of her art. It can be claimed that it was just through her various attempts at the use of watercolour that she attained that synthesis which later became something of a trademark for her – a pictorial idiom striving to attain the ultimate simplicity. Many of the subjects are scenes from her home at Hyvinge (Finland) where Schjerfbeck lived with her mother. The exhibition also includes a series of self-portraits.

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Mother – Home

Helene Schjerfbeck

In 1993, the Danish Bible Society published a special edition of the Bible in Danish. For this work, illustrations in watercolour were commissioned from Bodil Kaalund, Denmark’s leading church painter and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Art. The exhibition presents her original illustrations and a collection of other paintings on the same theme, together with three vestments designed by the artist.

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Pictures from the Bible

Bodil Kaalund

The installation Light Field comprises two hundred white, fragrant lilies, illuminated as if by magic each in its own glass bottle. On the walls around hang some fifty watercolour paintings. Ever since her years as a student at the Oslo art academy Line Bergseth has included flowers, plants and plant life as subjects in her art. At a first glance her paintings can seem to resemble botanical illustrations, but a closer look reveals that every picture is a portrait of a unique and individual plant which – each on its own terms – has been formed by the place, the time and the climate in which it has grown.

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Lilium

Line Bergseth

Salvador Dalí was one of the leading figures in modern art. Few have meant as much as Dalí for Modernism, and especially for the rise and development of Surrealism. For many, Dalí and Surrealism are synonymous. Salvador Dalí was a pioneer in many fields.The exhibition displays watercolours and drawings loaned from the Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dalí and the Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres, Spain. Most of the works date from the 1940s when Dalí spent time in the US. They are original artworks illustrating three of literature’s classics: Cellini’s autobiography, de Montaigne’s essays and Cervante’s Don Quixote.

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Salvador Dali

An exhibition, curated by Kim Levin. This is a journey through the multi-facetted range of watercolour and its borderlands, and illustrates the cultural variety to be found in such a large land as the USA. The journey takes us from the sun-drenched shores of California, via the cultures of the Native American population to the situation of the black women in the southern states. The exhibition can be experienced as a timely report on the USA today.Participating artists: Polly Apfelbaum, David Dupuis, Nicole Eisenman, Tony Feher, Spencer Finch, Tim Gardner, Brad Kahlhamer, Roxy Paine and Kara Walker.

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U.S. Watercolour

Waterworks

Göran Dalhov guides us along the waterways of the Swedish west coast, along the canals and rivers of Provence in France and through the dramatic landscape of Wales. His skilful brush and sharp eye enable us to share his experience of plant and animal life. While remaining within a classic watercolour tradition with influences from England he nevertheless remains in close touch with the everyday realities of present time and with global environmental issues.

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Waterways

Göran Dalhov

19 Nordic artists from different generations tell of the natural world that surrounds us. Here are woods, hills and water as well as city streets, but also a close examination of structures and patterns.Participating artists: Eva Berge, Birgit Broms, Kjell Ekström, Saara Ekström, Kerstin Eliasson, Zacharias Hennesen, Torgeir Husevaag, Kati Immonen, Peter Land, Svenrobert Lundkvist, Tone Myska, Palle Nielsen, Marjatta Nuoreva Kevät, Finnbogi Petursen, Ulla Rantanen, Anne Rolfsen, Ann-Sofi Sidén, Anu Tuominen and Carl Wargh

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- from the Museum Collection

Nature

It is impossible not to think of beauty when one sees the art of Mats Gustafson. With his solid and impressive background as a fashion illustrator of international standing, Gustafson has now turned his activities to free art. The exhibition, devoted to earlier works as well as completely new ones, ranges from romantic depictions of natural scenery from the American east coast to sensitive portraits of animals and graceful bodies.

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Mats Gustafson

Participating artists: Sólveig Aðalsteinsdóttir, Vanessa Baird, Jan Hietala, Kati Immonen, Arne Isacsson, Arto Korhonen, Michael Kvium, Tone Myskja, Finnbogi Pétursson, Ulf Rollof and Hannu Väisänen

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– from the Museum Collection

Notes

The exhibition consists of some fifty marine paintings from Åland and the Swedish island of Tjörn. Curator for this exhibition is Kjell Ekström, head of the Åland Museum at Mariehamn. The Nordic Watercolour Museum is responsible for the exhibition’s production. The pictures from Åland are loaned from the Åland Maritime Museum while the Tjörn images have been lent by private collectors. The main emphasis is on watercolour, though many of the paintings show a wide range of techniques.

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Portraits of ships

Vanessa Baird employs biting black humour to describe different situations in human life. She often adopts an elegant romantic story-book style but one in which the subject she has chosen abruptly shatters the viewer’s peace of mind. Animals and people in absurd and frequently sexual situations point to the collapse of propriety, and her work also includes powerful social criticism with clear feminist overtones.In this exhibition, a collaboration with the Galleri Wang in Oslo, Baird presents recent watercolours together with painted pottery.

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You can't keep a good Rabbit down

Vanessa Baird

Sol LeWitt, born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1928, ranks among the most significant of contemporary artists. Taking as his starting point the architecture and shape of the exhibition galleries he then proceeds to produce a quite unique exhibition. Working from basic sketches that he has made especially for this museum, he creates wall frescoes and drawings to fit the space. The exhibition is complemented by works on paper from recent years. The catalogue includes some of LeWitt’s texts on conceptual art from the ‘50s and ‘60s.The exhibition is the first major one-person exhibition of Sol LeWitt’s wall paintings and drawings to be shown in the Nordic countries.

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Sol LeWitt

In the summer of 2004, The Nordic Watercolour Museum presents an exhibition of some sixty watercolours by the Swedish artist Anders Zorn. Included are both well known and unfamiliar works, the majority painted during the initial intensive phase of his artistic career. Anders Zorn was famed and internationally successful even during his lifetime. His career and life story are remarkable and many are the tales concerning this illegitimate son born to a girl from the Swedish province of Dalecarlia and a German brewer. His watercolours bring us in close contact with this artist who impressed all with his eagle eye and skilful hand. We can trace his development from the work which made his name, painted while still at the academy, to the glittering light paintings of the close of the 19th century. Until as late as 1887 Anders Zorn worked almost exclusively in watercolour and mastered the technique to perfection. He established at an early stage the subjects he was to work with throughout his life. The exhibition offers handsome society portraits, depictions of the life of the common people and studies of women in settings of natural scenery. Also here are numerous sea studies, both fleeting impressions and careful observations in which Anders Zorn reveals that he never tired of the meeting of water, sky and light. The works on show in this exhibition are borrowed from the Zorn collections at Mora, Sweden, from Statens Museum for Kunst at Copenhagen, the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and the Göteborgs konstmuseum.

Pictures from the exhibition

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Anders Zorn

Approaching Martin Jacobson's visual world is like stepping into an enchanted forest. In folklore, the forest was a scene of dangers and adventures, an arena for magic and transformation but also a refuge. In the world of fairy tales, it was sometimes populated by wonderful animals and plants, by trolls, fairies and other strange creatures. However, they are not the ones we meet in the exhibition Excursions. Instead, we are invited to a journey through fantasy landscapes, where each glade, lake and tree trunk whispers their secret stories.

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Excursions

Martin Jacobson

Lars Lerin is a master of watercolour. He knows everything there is to know&nbsp;about the temper and movement of this media, along with its strengths and&nbsp;weaknesses. His images bear the imprint of his hands but also of his heart and mind. This summer’s extensive exhibition embraces both sadness and warmth, melancholia and hope.Visitors who are already familiar with Lerin's watercolours will recognise his typical treatment of light, which seems almost magically to illuminate the works from within.&nbsp;We will also discover new qualities in the artist’s extended subject matter.&nbsp;Nature has previously been a dominating element in Lerin’s work. Recently, he has begun taking a greater interest in the man-made world. His new works show the backdrops to our everyday lives. A sense of claustrophobia and isolation recurs in the dilapidated suburbs of European cities, but also in the watercolours of stuffed animals in the Gothenburg Natural History Museum. The emphasis is on house facades and window dressings. This is about feeling lost and alienated, about having gradually become more of an onlooker than a participator in the course of life. In Lerin's exhibition, the artist and spectator are both observers from the outside.Lars Lerin has also begun to reinterpret works by other artists and paint stills from films that have moved him, reproducing key scenes from classics by both Alfred Hitchcock and Werner Herzog. The result is paintings with the characteristic suspense of the film medium.Lars Lerin was born in Munkfors in 1954. He studied at Gerlesborgsskolan in&nbsp;Stockholm in 1974-75 and at the Valand Academy in Gothenburg in 1980-84.&nbsp;Lerin has long been recognised as one of the foremost Nordic watercolourists and has exhibited extensively in group and solo shows at galleries and museums in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Germany and the USA.

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Sceneries

Lars Lerin

Landscapes are a key theme in Arne Isacsson’s (1917– 2010) oeuvre. Nature, especially in Bohuslän, was his constant source of inspiration. He studied the seasons and the shifting light on the cliffs by the sea. His pure, figurative compositions in translucent, overlapping layers, are at once both monumental and poetically terse. Arne Isacsson mostly worked in a classical watercolour style. Throughout life, however, he experimented with the technique and wrote textbooks on oil and watercolour painting. The influence of his pedagogical contribution can hardly be over-estimated. In 1944, he founded Gerlesborgsskolan in Bohuslän, with a branch in Stockholm 1958. He was also one of the initiators of Nordiska Akvarellmuseet. This summer, the museum is featuring an extensive exhibition on Arne Isacsson’s works, acknowledging his accomplishments also as an art teacher and writer. In 2017, he would have been 100 years old.

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Arne Isacsson

Information booklet, Leiko Ikemura

The Nordic Watercolour Museum begins the 2019 art year with a solo exhibition by Leiko Ikemura. She was born in Tsu, Japan. However, Ikemura has lived in various places in Europe since the 1970s. Her artwork could be described as nomadic. Having voluntarily emigrated from her home country, Ikemura trained in the western European artistic tradition. She has studied and lived in Spain, Switzerland and Germany. Her work has been shown world-wide.Atmospherically, Leiko Ikemura’s art is naturally reminiscent of surrealist Odilon Redon, German expressionists and Louise Bourgeois’ trendsetting work. But Ikemura has found her own magical style – dreamy, poetic and vibrating with subtle metamorphoses as if nothing were fixed, as if all things were constantly in the process of becoming, of transforming. Over time she began to return to her Japanese roots, where the soul of nature thrives in daylight and the darkness of night. Ikemura’s enigmatic work portrays strange beings, animals, plants, minerals and architectural details that melt together and gradually morph as the image emerges. Figures with ethereal bodies evolve in a dreamy, nature-filled setting. People become plants. Plants become animals. Animals become amorphous figures and abstractions. From abstractions, new life is born, and everything begins again. A characteristic Japanese sense of the spirit of nature, which inspires everything, echoes throughout Ikemura’s artistic world. Transformations are a primary focus in everything she creates.&nbsp;<blockquote>"Trees are an incarnation of figures or me, or an emotional portrait. Everything is interconnected. Trees, water, mountains. I want to transform these forms. A long process of transformation or transfiguration. I disappear when I paint. Disappears away from this world. But I'm here.”</blockquote>In the exhibition we present the breadth of Leiko Ikemura’s fascinating imagery and feature her watercolours, tempera paintings and ceramic sculptures.

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Metamorphoses

Leiko Ikemura

Gunilla Bergström is one of Sweden's foremost picture book creators of all time. "One day, I'll darn well draw the soul!" This bold thought was the beginning of about 40 children's books with unforgettable characters. However, it is Alfons Åberg who without comparison has become the most famous of Gunilla Bergström's characters.The Nordic Watercolour Museum's art collection has now been enriched with a generous gift from Gunilla Bergström who donates the original images to two of her books: Three Cheers for Alfie’s Daddy! (1993) and There Goes Alfie the Thief! (1991). In connection with the donation, the museum has also acquired the original images for the book Just Tie It, Alfie Atkins! (1988).On display in Thordénrummet.

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Gunilla Bergström's donation

Mats Gustafson has a special feeling for the transient nature of watercolour. In the late 1970s, he embarked on a career as an international fashion illustrator, and eventually made his breakthrough on the art scene. Gustafson oscillates deftly between fashion, nature and life studies. His subject matter may seem simple: conifers and rocks in landscapes, deers, lined faces, couture fashion and nudes. It is all about capturing beauty in its many forms. Mats Gustafson’s art is both elegant and subtle. His lines leave no room for mistakes. Light and shadow are rhythmically distributed on the paper. Colours meld to form volume. The subject matter in this exhibition ranges from nature, to nude figures and fashion.

Mats Gustafson, Walking Silhouette (Yamamoto), 1998

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People form intimate bonds with each other, themselves and the places where they live. The summer selection from the museum’s own collection explores our relationship to nearby surroundings.&nbsp;Participating artists: Gunilla Hansson, Martin Jacobson, Peter Land, Lars Lerin, Maria Nordin, Fredrik Söderberg, Gunnel Wåhlstrand.

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Vicinity

American artist Nancy Spero (1926–2009) was one of the pioneers in feminist art. At the same time, she was deeply interested in large, ever-present existential issues. She perceived herself as a political artist and used her art to take a stand on social problems and political events. Through unconventional materials, new forms of expression and an explicit political commitment, she broke in the 1960s with the established art scene and was active in&nbsp;founding&nbsp;the women's gallery A.I.R. in New York in the 1970s.The exhibition at The Nordic Watercolour Museum has been created together with Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. The presentation includes some seventy works and room installations. An exhibition catalog is produced in collaboration with the German publisher Steidl.

Background: Nancy Spero, Black and Red III, 1994

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Nancy Spero

Sea Thrift, Grass and Yarrow. In the nature of Bohuslän, that surrounds the museum, you can find many exciting plant species, but the Museum Collection also sparkles with life. We are showing works by artists inspired by nature's rich flora, which has given rise to an equally wide variety of expressions.Participating artists: Line Bergseth, Guðrún Einarsdóttír, Carin Ellberg, Hreinn Friðfinnsson, Martin Jacobson, Bernd Koberling, Anne Koskinen, Elina Merenmies, Eggert Pétursson, Anu Tuominen, Carl Wargh

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What is Growing

In spring 2020, Korean German artist Jongsuk Yoon will create monumental murals in the largest exhibition hall at The Nordic Watercolour Museum. Jongsuk Yoon is presently one of the most inspiring artists on the international art scene, uniting the Western painting tradition with the East Asian.At first glance, Jongsuk Yoon's paintings seem to belong to the abstract expressionist tradition. She is well acquainted with European and American modernism after long art studies in Europe. However, art traditions of her home country, South Korea, are a strong influence. The paintings are developed during meditation and deep concentration. Her muted colours and frequent changes in perspective, landscape elements and gestures are reminiscent of Asian calligraphy. But beneath the expressive surface tranquillity and silence are hidden.The artist imbues the works with her personal presence. Jongsuk Yoon describes her creative process as a communication with the painting. “My ideas - she says - take shape on the canvas as I paint. The finished image is not in my head. It is the painting itself that tells me what to do. "Jongsuk Yoon, born in 1965, in Onyang, South Korea, moved to Europe in 1995. She lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. Jongsuk Yoon studied at the Art Academy in Münster in 1996, the Art Academy in Düsseldorf in 1997–2001 and the Chelsea College of Art in London in 2004–2005.

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Wall Paintings 2020

Jongsuk Yoon

The Nordic Watercolour Museum has highlighted picture books as an artform for several years. In spring 2020, we present original illustrations from two books by Eva Lindström that are in the museum’s collection – I’m Running Away (2006) and Everyone Walks Away (2015). Both are written and illustrated by the artist, and are about friendship and loneliness.About: Eva Lindström studied at Västerås Art School and the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She is both an illustrator and author. In the 1980s, she began working as a cartoonist, for example for the women’s magazine Q and Arbetaren (The Worker). She gradually began illustrating and writing picture books. Lindström’s style leans towards charged states of being and strong emotions. Thematically, she alternates between the most mundane and deeply existential issues. She works in watercolour, gouache and pencil. She has contributed to Kamratposten (a Swedish magazine for children) and created short animated cartoons, and several of her stories have been turned into films. Eva Lindström has been nominated for the August Prize for her children’s books many times, and she has received numerous awards.

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Eva Lindström

The Nordic Watercolour Museum will begin the year 2020 with an extensive solo exhibition of Fredrik Söderberg's magnificent watercolours. We dive into a rich oeuvre that alternates seamlessly between different themes: the figurative and the abstract, between the complex narrative and the monochrome calm.Fredrik Söderberg's art is usually based on a thorough investigation of historical periods and a history of ideas. Here, complex existential issues are analysed, the ambivalence between good and evil and the difficult concepts of ”right” and ”wrong” are reflected. In addition to a strong visual experience, the viewer is also forced into a thoughtful reflection.Fredrik Söderberg works in large series. The works vary in format, from relatively small to large. The figurative paintings are full of beautiful details that form a grand whole. The references derive from ancient and biblical stories, and connect to artists fascinated by both drawing and darkness: Albrecht Dürer, William Blake, Aubrey Beardsley, but also William Morris, the leading figure of the British Arts and Crafts movement.With references to both the spiritual and occult, to alchemy and astrology, Fredrik Söderberg has created precise symmetrical compositions, reminiscent of both Tibetan mandala and meticulous architectural sketches of building facades and temples. His abstract paintings fascinate with their exquisite colour and harmonious composition. His art is generally imbued with mysticism. In intricate ornaments of silver, gold and coloured bands, we see figurative and abstract forms in which matter and spirit meet.

Fredrik Söderberg

Lars Lerin, Maria Nordin and Bernd Koberling are well-known names, representing three different generations of artists. They move in different thematic circles, work with different forms of expression and radiate different kinds of energy. What they have in common, apart from the virtuoso watercolour technique, is a close friendship with the museum. Their art also incorporates the aesthetic values that are always so relevant. Bruno Liljefors worked around the late 19th and early 20th century, but has inspired many artists and has been a trendsetter in his approach to portraying birds. In the exhibition, he is presented alongside Lars Lerin.The exhibition is comprised of three distinct parts: Flora, Fauna and Kroppens tunna skalBernd Koberling / Flora Bernd Koberling’s art tends to focus on the plant kingdom, and his inspiration is often found in the nature of northern climes. Over the past 30 years, the artist has regularly returned to Iceland. His vision focuses on the innumerable shifts in Arctic flora. Koberling’s sensuous watercolours are like alchemy experiments, where water and pigment reflect life in microcosm. The upcoming exhibition shows some of the artist’s more recent paintings, in which the colour palette has been intensified and the visual idiom is more towards the abstract than the figurative.&nbsp;Lars Lerin &amp; Bruno Liljefors / Fauna (extended until 31 January 2021) Lars Lerin is one of Sweden’s best-loved artists, famous for his masterful treatment of chiaroscuro. An industrious art producer, Lerin creates paintings that embody ambiences and etch themselves into the memory. One of the vital elements in Lerin’s diverse creative portfolio is pictures of animals. With technical skill and a heartfelt passion for the humblest of creatures, Lerin depicts small birds, field mice and hares.The sensitive watercolours&nbsp;by Lars Lerin are shown alongside several studies by wildlife painter Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939).Wild animals was Liljefors's favourite subject matter. He was fascinated by Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory and combined his artistic talent with wildlife studies of animal behaviour. Liljefors had an innovative approach to painting animals and became internationally influential. In the 1880s, he worked according to the principles of naturalism. His motifs were often depicted at close range with the exactness of a hunter or natural scientist, and in a style partly inspired by Japanese art. The scenes are dramatic and heightened by Darwin's ideas on the survival of the fittest. Over the years, Liljefors's brushwork became looser and more similar to the Impressionist way of representing nature, with fleeting moods as a central element. The natural habitat of the animals also played an important part in his practice – Nordic twilight landscapes and dark forests.&nbsp;Maria Nordin / Kroppens tunna skal (extended until 31 January 2021) “The old-world body is linked to the cosmos. The new-world body is autonomous, but alone,” as ideas historian Karin Johannisson wrote. Nature and culture come together in portrayals of the body. The human body is also the starting-point for Maria Nordin’s creation. Her art depicts the body as the literal human shell, but also as a container for everything that is individual within us. The exhibition presents Maria Nordin’s latest paintings, which show the shell and surface, but is about making the invisible, visible.

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Flora, Fauna & Kroppens tunna skal

The Nordic Watercolour Museum is showing a solo exhibition of watercolours, drawings and textiles by Andreas Eriksson. The presentation highlights the complex, time-consuming creative process from idea to expression, from sketch to weave.Andreas Eriksson works with different artistic techniques in tandem. His styles and expressions can vary. The works often hang in the balance between the abstract and the figurative. His most important source of inspiration is nature.Eriksson’s interest in the actual canvas, its texture and tactile properties, was the origin of his textile works, completed alongside expert weaving artists. The large, monochrome tapestries are part of an ongoing series, which apart from a few individual works are being shown for the first time in Sweden. The works are named after geographic locations, such as Weissensee (a district of Berlin), Linköping, Djurgården and Vinterviken (the latter two in Stockholm).On many levels the entire suite is about the actual material and its origins. Everything begins with Andreas Eriksson’s sensitive watercolour sketches, and continues through the master weavers’ translations of these into another sensitive material. Water and pigment are transformed into textile patterns that arise through different degrees of density and floating weave. Unbleached linen yarns of different thickness lend texture. The natural colour of the linen, which shifts depending on the soil it was grown in and how much light it has been exposed to, has been preserved.In their literal way, the tapestries depict one of the fundamental problems of painting: the balance between depth and surface. Two artistic temperaments – the fast watercolour and the slow technique of weaving – blend together and become one. The end results is the unique expression of the works.

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From Sketch to Tapestry

Andreas Eriksson

The theme for this selection from the museum’s art collection is topography, in the most poetic sense of the word. Throughout the ages, artists and writers have portrayed not just external but also their internal landscapes.Through art, we track a terrain where emotions and impressions have been visualised and structured onto the receptive watercolour paper, as if it were a topographical map. The external and internal unite.On display in Thordénrummet.Participating artists: Lennart Alves, Gunilla Hansson, Torgeir Husevaag, Arne Isacsson,&nbsp;Anna Ling,&nbsp;Astrid Svangren

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Topography

The Nordic Watercolour Museum has highlighted picture books as an artform for several years. We do this as part of our aim to explore the history of traditional watercolour in relation to the contemporary. Ever since the first picture books began to be produced in the 19th century, watercolour techniques have played a major part in the creation of illustrations for this kind of literature. This is reflected in the museum's art collection, where original works by several of our most important picture book artists are represented. In this exhibition, you will see a selection of these artists.Participating artists: Anna Bengtsson, Gunilla Bergström, Eva Lindström, Marisol Misenta (ISOL), Gry Moursund and Harriët van Reek

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Colourful Stories

A major exhibition of the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser opened at The Nordic Watercolour Museum on 9 May 2021. Hundertwasser is one of the most famous international artists of the post-war period contributing with his unique and very personal style, centring on the spiral.Hundertwasser was a painter, a visionary artist and an ecological pioneer and never have his works been more relevant than today. His passion for nature and the environment was at the core of his art. His works vibrate with colour and creativity and draws us in with their vital energy. He opposed the straight line and pioneered a more human architecture, in harmony with nature.The exhibition highlights on Hundertwasser’s art from the early 1950s to late 1970s. It features works on paper in watercolour and mixed media, original prints, tapestries and architectural models.The exhibition is organised in association with the Hundertwasser Non-Profit Foundation in Vienna. It is curated by Annette Vogel and Bera Nordal.

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hundertwasser the i still do not not

Hundertwasser

The human figure has been one of the central painterly subjects since time immemorial. This is reflected in the Nordic Watercolour Museum’s collection, where many artists have allowed their motif to emerge from the human body and its fascinating form. Portraits may seem to be mere depictions, but they can also reveal things that are entirely different from the superficially obvious and visible. Art takes the viewer along on exciting journeys deep into the human mind, where feelings, impressions, memories and experiences are stored and processed and continue to shape our lives.Participating artists:&nbsp;Cecilia Edefalk, Leiko Ikemura, Michael Kvium, Peter Land, Olli Lyytikäinen, Elina Merenmies, Maria Nordin, Martha Ossowska Persson, Adam Saks, Mari Sunna, Astrid Svangren and Gunnel Wåhlstrand

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Beings

The Nordic Watercolour Museum presents a solo exhibition of works by Hilding Linnqvist (1891–1984). His characteristic style has guaranteed him a place among Sweden's foremost artists during the early 20th century.Paper and pen, ink and watercolours always at the ready was second nature to the artist Hilding Linnqvist. At home, on travels, in his studio. He was always drawing and sketching. His hand translated what captured his eye, so that he could process the first impression more methodically with the sketch as his starting point. This spontaneous sketching and need to let the image be born naturally were crucial to the development of his characteristic style.Some&nbsp;hundred works from different periods in Linnqvist’s long career are shown. Among the motifs are still lifes, images from his many travels, landscape sketches and café and street scenes, where modern life is beginning to show.The purpose of this exhibition is to demonstrate how integral the sketch is to the artistic process of Hilding Linnqvist. A process, which led to an unforgettable, often dazzling imagery, infused with narrative joy, in a broad range of themes and motifs.

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Hilding Linnqvist

In September 2021, the news came that one of Sweden's foremost picture book creators, Gunilla Bergström, has donated her original pictures from the books about Alfie Atkins to The Nordic Watercolour Museum's art collection. The donation, which includes 17 original books and countless sketches, was a gift from Gunilla Bergström while she was still alive. By presenting this exhibition in the spring of 2022, we pay tribute to the artist's invaluable work.Gunilla Bergström took her readers very seriously. She wrote about and illustrated life itself, to create understanding for ourselves and each other. In bright colours with sharp outlines and thought-provoking dialogues, she coaxed us to broad smiles and tears. She is best known for creating Alfie Atkins, a dear childhood friend for many of us.The books about Alfons offer a context where we can be big and small at the same time. Through the characters, we experience joy, wonder and life's surprises. She reminds us that things can be hard, but also of our ability to find solutions. Her skill at conveying this made her one of Sweden's finest picture book authors. Her imagery is inviting to children without excluding the grownups. It is funny, unnerving and goes straight to the heart.<blockquote>“The image should give associations far beyond what it is. It is the crown of the work. I want the image to fly, to flutter on. ”</blockquote>This spring's exhibition at The Nordic Watercolour Museum opens up Gunilla Bergström's visual world for play and learning, both literally and figuratively. Bergström's powerful imagery encourages us to participate with both body and mind. Some wooden boards transform into a helicopter that can take you anywhere and with a long string and some cardboard boxes you can build a cable car for your toys. With this exhibition, viewers step into, experience and discover the world of Alfie Atkins. A world, not entirely different from our own.

Gunilla Bergström, Aja Baja, Alfons Åberg, 1973 

Gunilla Bergström

Here is Alfie Atkins!

René Magritte’s enigmatic, surrealistic world of images, where given truths and our habitual ideas are questioned, will be presented during the summer of 2022 at The Nordic Watercolour Museum. For René Magritte, works on paper were a source of pleasure and he used them as a laboratory to develop his ideas. Unlike his oil paintings, which required meticulousness and patience, the paper was a medium where he could give his ideas free rein. The sketches he drew in his letters or on notepapers spawned his imagery. His ideas emerged in his correspondence. His commercial illustrations taught him to judge the effect of visual images. The gouache technique allowed him to paint different versions of existing oil paintings in order to continue his explorations of everyday objects.Magritte’s works on paper is rarely examined, even though they support his paintings. Knowing more about them makes it much easier to understand how his ideas evolved.The latest Magritte exhibition in Sweden took place in 1967, a few months after he died. At last, fifty-five years later, the exhibition René Magritte: A Laboratory of Ideas at The Nordic Watercolour Museum will give the Swedish public a new opportunity to discover the Belgian master of Surrealism through a chronological and thematic approach. The exhibition will comprise nearly 250 works, some of which have never been shown to the public. Letters, drawings, gouaches, documents, commercial work and films will be shown under different themes, thus to best enlighten Magritte’s method of working. By studying this wide array of disparate works, visitors will be able to unravel the secrets of the painter of mystery.The exhibition is curated by the two Magritte specialists Julie Waseige and Xavier Canonne, and is created in collaboration with La Fondation Magritte.

René Magritte, La bataille de l'Argonne, 1964

René Magritte, La trahison des images, 1952

René Magritte, (Ceci n'est pas une pomme), ca 1959

René Magritte, Elle danse le Charleston, 1927

René Magritte, Le modèle rouge, 1947-1948, Private Collection

René Magritte, L’homme et la forêt, ca 1965

A Lab of Ideas

René Magritte

Carin Ellberg is a story-teller who creates her own pictorial worlds. Characteristic of her style is the use of a slim, meandering line that winds its ornamental way. And in her installations it is the nylon pantyhose that plays the same role. Self-portraits and female figures are recurring themes in Ellberg’s work. Trees have a special significance in her iconography. Thoughts sprout like thick branches from human heads. Her works are also full of attributes conventionally associated with femininity: handbags, clothes, hair arrangements and sweets. Her palette is dominated by tones of varying pink and beige. She is interested in aspects of everyday aesthetics, where reality and dream merge undramatically and effortlessly but with the magic charm of fairy tale.Information about the exhibition will be updated

Exhibitions

On the horizon

Helene SchjerfbeckMother – Home

Bodil KaalundPictures from the Bible

Line BergsethLilium

Salvador Dali

WaterworksU.S. Watercolour

Göran DalhovWaterways

Nature- from the Museum Collection

Mats Gustafson

Notes– from the Museum Collection