Modern Art + Design presents Sigrid Hjertén

Sigrid Hjertén

”Den skära flickan”

The painting in the auction, ”Den skära flickan”, from 1916, was included in two of the exhibitions that, for Sigrid Hjertén, were the most significant.

In 1910 the ‘Föreningen Svenska Konstnärinnor’ (an organisation for Swedish female artists) was founded in Stockholm by forty or so female artists. In April 1921 the organisation put together an exhibition at Liljevalchs Konsthall that attracted a lot of attention. Seventeen artists participated, including Maj Bring, Siri Derkert, Ruth Milles, Ellen Trotzig and Sigrid Hjertén.

The exhibition was savagely criticised by some. Albert Engström, for example, wrote in Strix: “The other day I visited the lady-exhibition at Liljewalch and never before have I seen something so terrible”. The exhibition was a “disgrace to the entire female race”. And, because the women apparently lacked any sense of self-criticism, they should be prohibited from “making blunders such as these on behalf of themselves and the country”, which is what he thought was happening.

Despite its harsh criticism the 1921 exhibition became important in confirming the role of female artists on the art scene, in the same year that women also gained the right to vote in Sweden.