Lyftkranen

The encounter with modern art in Paris was transformative for Isaac Grünewald and his young artist friends, including Sigrid Hjertén. In the early 1900s, they studied for Henri Matisse and found a new idiom. Describing this experience, Grünewald writes: “Suddenly, I stood before a wall that sang, no, screamed of colour and radiated light ... All the rules I had learned and used were rejected." Back in Stockholm a couple of years later, Grünewald became the spokesman of young art in Sweden, claiming the artist’s right to liberate colour, form and expression from old traditions. Isaac Grünewald and Sigrid Hjertén married in 1911 and eventually found a studio in the Slussen area in Stockholm. From there, they portrayed the emerging modern urban pulse, the cranes on Stadsgården and the busy traffic – all in the bright hues of the modern times and in a vertiginous bird’s eye perspective. A new city, a new era, was dawning.