Mina (Vilhelmina) Carlsson-Bredberg

Colouristicly, and in its almost abstract qualities, the present work anticipates the works of Wasilly Kandinsky executed around 1909-10. On her visit to Karlsbad, the famous spa city in Czech Republic, Carlson Bredberg almost certainly came in contact with the Phalanx School in Munich, founded in 1901 by Kandinsky Rolf Nitsky, Waldemar Heckel and Wilhelm Huisgen, where the Swedish artist Carl Palme (1879-1960), a pioneering artist in Swedish modernism, studied between 1902-04, following his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1900-01. The Phalanx school was active until 1904 and organized a number of exhibitions of modern artists. Carl Palme became a close friend of Kandinsky and his girlfriend Gabriele Münther. In 1903, Palme was commissar of an exhibition of van Gogh’s work organized by the school, the first exhibition of van Gogh’s work in Germany.

Between 1883–1889, Mina Carlson-Bredberg studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1884 she painted Académie Julian with mademoiselle Beson drinking som dricker ur sitt glas, which shows three artist women behind their easels. The painting mirrors the collegial contacts and sometimes lifelong friendships that were forged across national borders. Among Mina Carlson-Bredberg’s Parisian friends were the Swedish Elisabeth Keyser and the successful German-Swiss Louise Catherine Breslau. In 1886 she painted her famous self-portrait (Prins Eugen’s Waldemarsudde). However, her great breakthrough came with another self-portrait, that received an honourable mention at the great World Exhibition in Paris in 1889. In 1890, she left Paris and returned to Sweden, but made a number of study trips the following years to Italy, England, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Austria. In France, she got to know Lewis Foreman Day, engaged in the Arts and Crafts movement. She visited him and his wife repeatedly in London and through them also came in contact with William Morris and Walter Crane. She herself considered as significant her meeting with English impressionism and James McNeill Whistler’s painting. Her early low-key style with its emphasis on form gradually took on more impulses from impressionism, developing into a looser, freer, and, as years passed, ever more personal, colourful and expressive style. Between 1893–1895, She taught at Elisabeth Keyser’s school of painting. In 1895, she married Georg Carlson, an official, and they had one son.

Mina Carlson-Bredberg was one of the initiative-takers of the women artists’ association (Föreningen Svenska konstnärinnor) which had its debut exhibition at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1911. She participated in its exhibitions in 1917 and 1927, then with a retrospective section. In 1920 and 1923 she exhibited at Sigge Björcks konsthandel at Strandvägen in Stockholm and in 1931 at Galerie Moderne, Ett halvsekel som målarinna (Half a Century as painter). In this exhibition she showed 152 works. Mina Carlson-Bredberg has also participated in group exhibitions in Chicago, London and Vienna. She was represented in the exhibition Opponenterna at Nationalmuseum in 1945.