Birgit Broms

Birgit Broms’ (1924–2008) life consistently revolved around creativity. Art was an integral part of her life. Her strong integrity and uncompromising practice have contributed to making her art timeless and forever contemporary.

Broms had a unique ability to capture movement and a sense of freedom in her works, where the composition was crucial to the totality. The same motifs were painted again and again. But her experiments with form were a game that Birgit Broms took very seriously. She painted with oils and watercolours, deftly combining paperboard, newspaper cuttings, metal foil and strips of fabric into fascinating collages. She never shied away from intense hues of red, blue or black. But she was just as uncompromising in her approach to a more subdued palette. Repetition was her driving force and method. 

The exhibition at The Nordic Watercolour Museum features Birgit Broms’ famous series of ice skaters and building facades. It also includes works created towards the end of her life – enigmatic still-lifes and self-portraits. The latter are, in some sense, her artistic legacy. They show her as an aged, delicate and fragile person, and yet astonishingly strong. Here, movement slows down and life drains away. A large number of drawings and collages on paper are shown for the first time. These sketches can also be seen as works in their own right.

Birgit Broms was an artist with an intense eye and extraordinary sensitivity. Her expressive style uniquely blends colour, shape and movement.