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.

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.