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#0468
454
Shulamith Behr
2. S. Hjerten, The Red Blind 1916, oil
on canvas, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
practitioner as one of 'double marginality', viewed by patriarchal society as incompatible
with professional commitment and regarded as peripheral within avant-garde communi-
ties.16 Indeed, in Sweden, a conservative attitude was apparent in the policies of vanguard
associations. De unga, for instance, a group to whom the term Expressionist was first
applied in 1911, only allowed male membership when it was established in 1907. Howe-
ver, in 1910, women artists responded by founding their own exhibiting and support gro-
up, the Svenska konstndrinnors forening.' Even if not directly active in feminist and
socialist circles, women practitioners were informed by a milieu in which social, econo-
mic and sexual reform was publicly addressed. The process of democratisation was spe-
eded up once the Socialdemokratiska Arbetarpartiet won the second chamber election in
1907.
The professional status of artists underwent immense transformation during the 1890s,
as they rejected the traditional channels of training in state academies in favour of the
studios of progressive and established mentors. Women artists too, who were allowed
access to academic training in Sweden,18 preferred the cosmopolitan and liberating am-
bience of private studio tuition in Paris, Munich or Dusseldorf. Travel provided both a
release from the strictures of bourgeois society and the experience abroad of avant-garde
subcultures and metropolitan life. In the meantime, debates in Sweden over sexuality and
related issues like prostitution, free love, contraception and abortion were especially lively
16 S. RUBIN SULEIMAN, Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics and the Avant-Garde, Cambridge, Mass. 1990.
17 See: C. CHRISTENSEN, Training and Professionalism: Nordic Countries, [in:] Dictionary of Women Artists, D.
Gaze (ed.), London 1998, p. 114.
18 Ibid., p. 112. As early as 1864 a 'Section for Women' was established at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stoc-
kholm, with eighteen students in attendance in its first year.
Shulamith Behr
2. S. Hjerten, The Red Blind 1916, oil
on canvas, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
practitioner as one of 'double marginality', viewed by patriarchal society as incompatible
with professional commitment and regarded as peripheral within avant-garde communi-
ties.16 Indeed, in Sweden, a conservative attitude was apparent in the policies of vanguard
associations. De unga, for instance, a group to whom the term Expressionist was first
applied in 1911, only allowed male membership when it was established in 1907. Howe-
ver, in 1910, women artists responded by founding their own exhibiting and support gro-
up, the Svenska konstndrinnors forening.' Even if not directly active in feminist and
socialist circles, women practitioners were informed by a milieu in which social, econo-
mic and sexual reform was publicly addressed. The process of democratisation was spe-
eded up once the Socialdemokratiska Arbetarpartiet won the second chamber election in
1907.
The professional status of artists underwent immense transformation during the 1890s,
as they rejected the traditional channels of training in state academies in favour of the
studios of progressive and established mentors. Women artists too, who were allowed
access to academic training in Sweden,18 preferred the cosmopolitan and liberating am-
bience of private studio tuition in Paris, Munich or Dusseldorf. Travel provided both a
release from the strictures of bourgeois society and the experience abroad of avant-garde
subcultures and metropolitan life. In the meantime, debates in Sweden over sexuality and
related issues like prostitution, free love, contraception and abortion were especially lively
16 S. RUBIN SULEIMAN, Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics and the Avant-Garde, Cambridge, Mass. 1990.
17 See: C. CHRISTENSEN, Training and Professionalism: Nordic Countries, [in:] Dictionary of Women Artists, D.
Gaze (ed.), London 1998, p. 114.
18 Ibid., p. 112. As early as 1864 a 'Section for Women' was established at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stoc-
kholm, with eighteen students in attendance in its first year.