Greta Cembraeus-Thorén Collection

Bukowskis presents a private art collection in this themed auction, with provenance tracing back to Greta Thorén Lindahl (1895–1979). Greta Thorén Lindahl was married to the artist Esaias Thorén from 1936 to 1945. The couple had a son, Staffan Thorén, who was born in 1936.

The collection reflects the Thorén couple’s close ties with artist friends and family friends. The Halmstad Group is represented, as is their friend Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen and his wife, Elsa Thoresen. During the German occupation of Denmark in the Second World War, the couple found temporary refuge in Greta Thorén’s home in Stockholm. A number of paintings by the artist couple Anna and Christian Berg are also presented here. The collection further includes several works by Madeleine Pyk associated with Greta’s son, Staffan, who exhibited alongside Pyk during the 1960s.

Little is known about Greta Thorén Lindahl’s life, but it is known that she was deeply involved in YK (Yrkeskvinnornas Klubb, the Professional Women’s Club). Among those behind the organisation were Alva Myrdal and Célie Brunius. Greta Thorén Lindahl was one of five women from YK responsible for the construction of a collective housing complex in Gärdet, Stockholm, in 1939. The building featured a central kitchen with a communal restaurant, food lifts delivering meals directly to the apartments, a nursery and a gymnasium. Today, the YK building on Furusundsgatan is a tenant-owned housing association.