Modern Art & Design Presents Alice and Nils Wedels Collection
Bukowskis is honoured to present the private collection of the Swedish artists Alice and Nils Wedel.
"When I came to France as a very young man after the First World War and encountered Cubism, it was the greatest experience of my life. I was completely bewitched, and it remains the most significant event of my existence." (Nils Wedel, interview in the newspaper Arbetet, May 1946)
Alice and Nils Wedel met as students of Albert Eldh at the School of the Handicraft Society (Slöjdföreningens skola) in Gothenburg between 1913 and 1917. Their lives would become intertwined both artistically and personally, with hospitality and close friendships running like a red thread throughout. After their years at the Handicraft School, they both received an art scholarship that enabled a journey to Paris. Nils travelled first and, once in Paris, sought out the Swedish artist Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (GAN), who had already lived there for some time. Through GAN, Nils was introduced to the master Fernand Léger and the new Cubist style—a transformative experience that deeply influenced his artistic production.
After a while, Alice joined Nils in Paris, and on September 13, 1921, the young couple were married. They already had a wide social circle, and among the guests at the wedding and the joyful celebration at their studio in Villa Brune were friends such as the Swedish artists GAN, Bror Hjorth, Gustaf Malmström, Arvid Källström, and many other artist friends.
Their journey home from Paris included a stop in Munich, then a stronghold of early modernism, where Wedel was influenced by works by Kandinsky and Klee. They also stayed for a while in Copenhagen, where Nils worked as a freelance newspaper illustrator, and the couple made many new friends among writers, artists, and people from the theater world.
When Nils, Alice, and their growing family moved back to Sweden in 1928, they resumed their friendship with GAN. Through him, they also became acquainted with several of the era’s radical cultural figures in Lund, such as music critic Sten Broman, silversmith Wiwen Nilsson, and art historian Aron Borelius. GAN became a regular guest of the Wedel family and often joined in their Christmas celebrations. "Uncle Gösta" would sometimes bring gifts for the children—framed drawings and works in tempera or oil. When distance kept them apart, both GAN and Nils were frequent letter writers, and parts of their correspondence are preserved today, at Lund University Library.
One of their sons, Karsten Wedel, has described what it was like growing up in the Wedel artistic home during the 1930s: "There was always the smell of melting wax and turpentine at home—it was, in a way, a sign that everything was as it should be. At first, it was only Alice who used the wax pot for her batiks, and those sold easily—unlike Nils’ paintings. […] Alice and Nils had a lively and colorful social life, with friends from their time in France and Denmark, in addition to all their friends in Skåne. A parade of painting, singing, performing, storytelling, sleeping people became a natural part of our everyday life. Often, there would be a scenographer sleeping in an armchair when we came home from school, or a tuxedo-clad artist playing the piano in the morning when we were getting up.”
Read about "Nature morte I" by Gösta Adrian-Nilsson at Modern Art & Design.
Together with Alice, Nils developed a new wall painting technique which they called navax—tempera on linen canvas with wax melted in to permanently affix the painting to the wall. Using this method, Nils created numerous decorative murals, including The Triumph of the Arts in the stairwell of the Norrköping Museum, in Folkets Hus in Gothenburg, and at the Textile Institute in Borås.
Alice produced several post-Cubist batik works based on Nils’ designs, but in her own compositions she drew inspiration from Oriental splendours and the mosaics of Ravenna. As a textile artist, she exhibited at the 1925 World Exhibition in Paris, where she was awarded a gold medal, and at the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930.
During the war years, the Wedel family helped several Danish artists who had been forced to flee the occupation. The Wedel home became a refuge for, among others, the painter Immanuel Ibsen and the brothers Asger Jorn and Jörgen Nash. At the end of the war, Nils and Alice often exhibited together, including at Färg och Form in Stockholm in 1945 and with Danish modernists at Den Frie in Copenhagen that same year.
Nils concluded his artistic career as a teacher of decorative painting and printmaking at the Handicraft Society’s School in Gothenburg, where he and Alice had once studied. He remained there until 1958 and had a lasting impact on many aspiring young artists. Today, Nils Wedel is best known for his vibrant abstract compositions created using the navax technique. He also worked in etching, aquatint, woodcut, wood engraving, and lithography.
The collection will be sold at Modern Art & Design
Viewing: May 14–19, Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Open May 14 12 AM–6 PM, weekdays 11 AM–6 PM, weekends 11 AM–4 PM
Live auction: May 20–21, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm
Read more about Modern Art & Design
Selected works from the collection at Modern Art & Design
Estimate
12 000 - 15 000 SEK
Requests & condition reports Contact specialist
Stockholm
Lena Rydén
Head of Art, Specialist Modern and 19th century Art
+46 (0)707 78 35 71
Stockholm
Andreas Rydén
Head Specialist, Art, Deputy Managing Director
+46 (0)728 58 71 39