Gallery 01:9

THE GARDEN OF EDEN - SIGRID HJERTÉN

The artist Sigrid Hjertén (1885–1948), who is best known today for her expressive, colouristic paintings, began her career as a textile artist. Hjertén majored in textile art at the University Collage of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, and her textile works were shown in 1909 at the Industrial Arts Exhibition in Stockholm. That autumn, she went to Paris, where she was inspired by the new tendencies in art. Like many of her fellow Swedish artists in the French capital, Hjertén studied painting at Henri Matisse’s academy.

In 1911, Hjertén stayed for two months in Småland with her friend from her student years in Stockholm, the tapestry artist Alma Andreasson- Wenchert. In a letter to her future husband Isaac Grünewald, Hjertén writes: “I have designed a large tapestry with figures, but I need to let the drawing rest day after day to find the right form for it.” The Garden of Eden was woven in flossa technique by Andreasson-Wenchert the same year, following Hjertén’s draft. The tapestry was first shown in the artist group De Åtta’s exhibition at Salong Joël during the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912, together with paintings by artists such as Isaac Grünewald, Leander Engström and Gösta Sandels. Two years later, it was presented at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö. Its intense colours and decorative, rhythmic lines are also found in Hjertén’s paintings, indicating how the two artistic practices clearly influenced each other.