Siri Derkert

The artist who carved her times into stone.

Siri Derkert was a painter, draughtswoman and activist for peace, women's rights and the environment. Her best-known work is the incised murals at Östermalmstorg.

Siri Derkert was born in Stockholm in 1888. She studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and in 1913 travelled to Paris, where she encountered Cubism and modern art. There she met the Finnish painter Valle Rosenberg, with whom she had a child. He died in 1919, and the years that followed were difficult, both financially and personally. Her son Carlo Derkert later became a well-known art educator at the Moderna Museet.

In the 1920s and 1930s she painted portraits, children and everyday life in a freer, expressive style and supported herself and her children with difficulty. Over time drawing became increasingly important. She worked with a light, sweeping line and began to incorporate words and short texts directly into the pictures.

Derkert was deeply committed politically. She campaigned for women's rights, against nuclear weapons and for peace, and was an early advocate on environmental issues. She belonged to circles of radical women in Stockholm and made portraits of women who had fought for the vote and for peace. For her, art and politics belonged together.

In 1962 she represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale. Her best-known work is the incised murals in the Östermalmstorg underground station in Stockholm, completed in the 1960s. Images and texts have been carved into the concrete walls, with motifs from the women's movement, the peace movement and the struggle for nature. The station became one of the first on the Stockholm underground where art was part of the space itself.

Siri Derkert died in 1973. She is now regarded as a pioneer of political art in Sweden and as a role model for later generations of feminist artists.