Hilding Linnqvist
City-hermit and Cosmopolitan
Curator: Erik Sandberg
Opening 15 juni, 12 noon–5pm
Inaugural speech by curator Erik Sandberg, 2pm
In the exhibition City-hermit and Cosmopolitan new inquiries into artistic conditions and prerequisites are awoken. The later painting style of Hilding Linnqvist that has often been seen as an abandonment of the naive radicality, is now faced with reinterpretation. City-hermit and Cosmopolitan is a move away from questions of aesthetics and stylistics, towards an examination of the works’ motifs and their meaning.
As a man during the beginning of the 20th century, Hilding Linnqvist had greater access than his female colleagues to the public sphere and had the opportunity to travel, both within Sweden and in other countries. This is visible in his art. However, what is missing is a closeness to what is being depicted, which can be due to the fact Linnqvist often finalised his works at home in his artist studio, and not in-situ. There is a distance to the public life and to nature in his painting, a certain feeling of standing outside the unraveling scene as though one is looking through a window.
When the gaze instead is turned towards the own home a greater sense of intimacy emerges. The home, which traditionally has been viewed as a space denoted by femininity, appears as a more comfortable milieu for Linnqvist to create within. Here we are let in on the inside, and are put in close contact with the motifs.