DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Behr, Shulamith: Differencing modernism: Swedish women artists in early twentieth-century avant-garde culture
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0472
458
Shulamith Behr
mutually conducive at the outset,27 during the 1920s she unwittingly revealed the con-
flicts that arose between family commitments and her chosen profession:
'I do not paint very much nowadays ... I concern myself with my husband's work. His
successes, setbacks, dreams and struggles are mine and, besides, I have our son and the
household. That is enough and I am happy with it. Now when I paint it is mostly for
pleasure.'28
Vera Nilsson (1888-1979), Mollie Faustman (1883-1966) and Siri Derkert (1888-1973)
led highly unconventional lives for the time, Nilsson and Derkert bearing children outside
marriage. This was not an easy choice, since Derkert, as an unwed mother, was forced to
give birth to one of her daughters in Denmark in 1918.29 Her marriage to the artist Bertil
Lybeck, the father of her daughters Liv and Sara, lasted from 1921 until 1925.
Evidently, their choice of unconventional life-styles made these women artists prime
candidates for avant-garde activities, their relative independence being assisted by the
emergence of notable private dealers and exhibiting outlets in the rapidly expanding urban
centres.30 They embraced the technical radicalism associated with Parisian modernism.
Hjerten, Faustman and Maj Bring (1880-1971) benefited from their pre-war sojourns as
students in the studio of Matisse, in particular in painting directly from the model without
preliminary studies. In his studio, the primary use of colour was encouraged, but not at the
expense of form. By this stage, Matisse had passed his Fauvist outburst and his treatise
"Notes d'un peintre", published in 1908, proclaimed the superiority and the harmony of
the aesthetic process over verisimilitude.31 Hjerten took aspects of his theoretical argu-
ment, in particular the function of line and ornament, further in her essay "Modern och
ósterldndsk konst", published in 1911.32 Furthermore, in the same year, she demonstrated
her familiarity with major trends in early modernism by publishing the first biography of
Cezanne in the Swedish press.33 Faustman too invaded the spaces of male culture by
taking on the role of art critic for the cultural journal 'Ares' from October 1921 until
September 1922.34
In Paris, Lilly Rydstróm-Wickelberg (1891-1957), Agnes Cleve (1876-1951) and Nils-
son followed a different route in the studio La Palette of Le Fauconnier. They were trained
to draw from the model, observing and stressing the fundamental, geometrie shapes akin
to Cubist formal analysis. Between 1913 and 1914, Derkert studied in the studio of Marie
Vasilieff, where Leger was one of the teachers. In landscapes, still-lives and portraits pain-
ted in Italy in 1915-16, Derkert subtly adapted Cubist devices to the domestic sphere. Her
Still Life with Teapot (ill. 3) reinvigorates the genre by juxtaposing the tilted tabletop with
landscape motifs, the shifting quasi-geometric facets and shaded tonalities providing a
27 Hjerten divorced in 1937. Her mental illness, already diagnosed in 1932, recurred in 1938.
28 Intenju med Sigrid Hjerten, 'Idun', vol. V, 23 November 1924.
29 B. NILSSON, Siri Derkert, [in:] Scandinavian Modernism: Painting in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and
Sweden 1910-1920, exhib. cat., Góteborgs Konstmuseum, and elsewhere, 1989, p. 102.
30 For an overview of this phenomenon in Germany, Sweden and Holland, see: S. BEHR, Women Expressionists, Oxford
1988.
31 H. MATISSE, Notes Lun peintre, 'La Grande Revue', Paris 25th December 1908, pp. 731-45. For further commen-
tary on impact of Matisse, see: BEHR 1995, pp. 164-7.
32 S. HJERTEN, Modern och osterldndsk konst, 'Svenska Dagbladet', 24 February 1911.
33 Idem, Paul Cezanne, 'Svenska Dagbladet', 24th November 1911.
34 See: Mollie Faustman, [in:] Louise Robbert, "Den otroliga verkligheten" 13 kvinnliga pionjdrer, Boras 1994, p. 134.
Shulamith Behr
mutually conducive at the outset,27 during the 1920s she unwittingly revealed the con-
flicts that arose between family commitments and her chosen profession:
'I do not paint very much nowadays ... I concern myself with my husband's work. His
successes, setbacks, dreams and struggles are mine and, besides, I have our son and the
household. That is enough and I am happy with it. Now when I paint it is mostly for
pleasure.'28
Vera Nilsson (1888-1979), Mollie Faustman (1883-1966) and Siri Derkert (1888-1973)
led highly unconventional lives for the time, Nilsson and Derkert bearing children outside
marriage. This was not an easy choice, since Derkert, as an unwed mother, was forced to
give birth to one of her daughters in Denmark in 1918.29 Her marriage to the artist Bertil
Lybeck, the father of her daughters Liv and Sara, lasted from 1921 until 1925.
Evidently, their choice of unconventional life-styles made these women artists prime
candidates for avant-garde activities, their relative independence being assisted by the
emergence of notable private dealers and exhibiting outlets in the rapidly expanding urban
centres.30 They embraced the technical radicalism associated with Parisian modernism.
Hjerten, Faustman and Maj Bring (1880-1971) benefited from their pre-war sojourns as
students in the studio of Matisse, in particular in painting directly from the model without
preliminary studies. In his studio, the primary use of colour was encouraged, but not at the
expense of form. By this stage, Matisse had passed his Fauvist outburst and his treatise
"Notes d'un peintre", published in 1908, proclaimed the superiority and the harmony of
the aesthetic process over verisimilitude.31 Hjerten took aspects of his theoretical argu-
ment, in particular the function of line and ornament, further in her essay "Modern och
ósterldndsk konst", published in 1911.32 Furthermore, in the same year, she demonstrated
her familiarity with major trends in early modernism by publishing the first biography of
Cezanne in the Swedish press.33 Faustman too invaded the spaces of male culture by
taking on the role of art critic for the cultural journal 'Ares' from October 1921 until
September 1922.34
In Paris, Lilly Rydstróm-Wickelberg (1891-1957), Agnes Cleve (1876-1951) and Nils-
son followed a different route in the studio La Palette of Le Fauconnier. They were trained
to draw from the model, observing and stressing the fundamental, geometrie shapes akin
to Cubist formal analysis. Between 1913 and 1914, Derkert studied in the studio of Marie
Vasilieff, where Leger was one of the teachers. In landscapes, still-lives and portraits pain-
ted in Italy in 1915-16, Derkert subtly adapted Cubist devices to the domestic sphere. Her
Still Life with Teapot (ill. 3) reinvigorates the genre by juxtaposing the tilted tabletop with
landscape motifs, the shifting quasi-geometric facets and shaded tonalities providing a
27 Hjerten divorced in 1937. Her mental illness, already diagnosed in 1932, recurred in 1938.
28 Intenju med Sigrid Hjerten, 'Idun', vol. V, 23 November 1924.
29 B. NILSSON, Siri Derkert, [in:] Scandinavian Modernism: Painting in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and
Sweden 1910-1920, exhib. cat., Góteborgs Konstmuseum, and elsewhere, 1989, p. 102.
30 For an overview of this phenomenon in Germany, Sweden and Holland, see: S. BEHR, Women Expressionists, Oxford
1988.
31 H. MATISSE, Notes Lun peintre, 'La Grande Revue', Paris 25th December 1908, pp. 731-45. For further commen-
tary on impact of Matisse, see: BEHR 1995, pp. 164-7.
32 S. HJERTEN, Modern och osterldndsk konst, 'Svenska Dagbladet', 24 February 1911.
33 Idem, Paul Cezanne, 'Svenska Dagbladet', 24th November 1911.
34 See: Mollie Faustman, [in:] Louise Robbert, "Den otroliga verkligheten" 13 kvinnliga pionjdrer, Boras 1994, p. 134.