Modern Art + Design presents Carl Kylberg, "Segeltorkning (II)"

Later in life Kylberg would spend his summers, together with his wife Ruth, in North Zealand, with the ocean as a constant source of inspiration. The Kylberg couple lived with an open view of the Öresund, on which faraway ships were outlined in the distance, as if in a space of stillness. In these places the artist was protected from the outside world, given the peace and quiet he needed to catch up with his dreams and paint what he really desired. This ‘search’ also evokes in his work a powerful feeling of timelessness.

Kylberg’s images of the ocean are dreamy and mysterious. He expresses the beauty of a sunset, a ship by the horizon, a quiet sea, and a calming stillness. As a teenager he signed on to the training ship Abraham Rydberg, inspired by his older brother Frederik who was a sailor and had already travelled and worked on the same ship. The experiences he gained during this relatively short period would later inspire one of his most well-known pieces Den flygande holländaren, as well as a few other secretive ships that he depicted in an atmosphere of shimmering light and an unusual dimness. Kylberg would himself recount his existential meeting with the never-ending sea and the lonely ship when he came to sign on to the Abraham Rydberg as it lay anchored outside Sandhamn. He had arrived at dusk, seeing the ship, as if in a dream, lying there on the still water in the dying light of the summer eve.