De unga and the breakthrough of Modernism

Matisse’s pupils, the Cubists and abstraction carried Swedish art into the modern age.

In 1909 the group known as the Young Ones (De unga) exhibited in Stockholm. Many had studied under Matisse in Paris and painted with strong, free colour. Isaac Grünewald, Leander Engström and Birger Simonsson were among them.

The Expressionists were often met with ridicule. Critics dubbed Grünewald and Hjertén’s 1918 exhibition “the elephant exhibition”. Meanwhile GAN was working with Cubism and Futurism, Viking Eggeling with abstract film and Otto G. Carlsund with Concrete art in Paris.

Nils Dardel and Einar Jolin painted in an elegant, decorative manner, and Vera Nilsson developed a heavy, powerful Expressionism. In the applied arts, Swedish modernism was shaped by artists such as Märta Måås-Fjetterström.