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Groninger Museum opens Nordic Art 1880 – 1920 exhibition

Groninger Museum presents Nordic Art 1880 – 1920, an exhibition on view 9 December 2012 to 5 May 2013.


L.A. Ring At the French Windows. The Artists Wife 1897 Oil on canvas 191 x 144 cm National Gallery of Denmark www.smk.dk

This exhibition is a tribute to the peoples and cultures of the Nordic countries, and provides an overview of 19th and 20th-century North European painting. The splendid landscapes, portraits and scenes from everyday rural life display both the similarities and the differences between Nordic countries. The exhibition focuses on the time when movements such as Realism, Naturalism and more divergent styles such as Symbolism and upcoming Modernism existed side by side.

In North Europe, the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries formed a crucial era in artistic, cultural and intellectual development. The artworks created in that period represented those changing ambitions. Edvard Munch, Akseli Gallen-Kallela and August Strindberg are major examples in this context. With their lucid and striking works, they manage to capture the poetic beauty, the core and spirit of the mystical North. Although Nordic art has its roots in European culture, the artists could emphasize their own identity by depicting North European life.

Recently, increasing interest in Nordic art has brought about a rise in the number of exhibitions in Europe and the United States. The ambition of this project is to surpass this level by offering a complete overview of painting in this period. Particular attention is paid to the transitional period between Realism, Symbolism and Modernism. The socio-geographical angle of approach provides an alternative to standard European art.

The exhibition shows work by Vilhelm Hammershøi, Eero Järnefelt, Ernst Josephson, Anders Zorn, Bruno Liljefors, Carl Larsson, and P.S. Krøyer, among others. This is the first time that these works have been shown in the Netherlands in this constellation.

The exhibition Nordic Art 1880 – 1920 has been compiled b

Groninger Museum
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