Sigrid Hjertén
The force of Swedish Expressionism.
Sigrid Hjertén studied under Matisse in Paris and was one of the “Young Ones” in Stockholm. The critics were harsh on her, but today she is regarded as one of the most important Swedish modernists.
Sigrid Hjertén was born in 1885 in Sundsvall. She trained as a drawing teacher specialising in pattern and textiles at the Technical School, today’s Konstfack, in Stockholm. In 1909 she went to Paris and became a pupil at the Académie Matisse, where she encountered the new French art of colour.
In Paris she met the painter Isaac Grünewald. They married in 1911, and the same year their son Iván was born. The family lived in a studio on Södermalm in Stockholm, overlooking Slussen and the harbour. The view became one of her most important subjects. She also painted her family, women in urban settings and herself.
Hjertén worked with strong, contrasting colours and simplified, expressive forms. Studio Interior of 1916, which shows the artist family and a guest in the studio, is one of the key works of Swedish Expressionism and is in the Moderna Museet. She exhibited in Sweden and abroad, including in Berlin.
The critics were often harsh and scornful towards her. She also had to stand in the shadow of her more famous husband, and it was difficult to be taken seriously as a woman modernist. In the 1920s the family lived in Paris for a long period. There her pictures became calmer and more subdued.
In the mid-1930s she fell mentally ill and was treated at Beckomberga Hospital. Her marriage to Grünewald was dissolved. She died in 1948 following complications from brain surgery. For a long time she was less well known, but today she is regarded as one of the most significant Swedish modernists.