Signature Women
Past exhibition March 8 – November 29, 2020
On International Women’s Day, Sunday March 8th 2020, the exhibition Signature Women – 100 Years on the Swedish Art Scene opened at Artipelag. Some 350 works by about fifty Swedish female artists were presented, well-known as well as previously marginalized names, active from the previous century up to current day.
The selection comprised painting, sculpture, textile, crafts, drawings and graphic prints, photography and film. The artists were be presented based on the century they primarily were productive in, and selection was based on how their art reflects the prevailing social climate at the time.
– A little while ago, I was commissioned by a Norwegian art museum to propose names of Swedish artists to a Nordic art collection. To refresh my knowledge, I turned to art history. I got reminded of how flagrant the male predominance was in most descriptions, the ratio of male and female artists respectively was 95% male and 5% female, regardless of whether the book in question was by a male or female author. It was against this background the idea to an exhibition highlighting this disproportion came about, says Bo Nilsson, Director at Artipelag.
The term Signature Women is an onset to reflect the shifting over a hundred years, when female artists have gone from being dispatched to artistic obscurity to today’s loftiness.
– Our ambition is not to conjure up an ultimate picture of art history, but we chose to present a humble historical writing, rather a topic for discussion than a definitive statement, said Nilsson.
Image above: Untitled Without, 1988. Detail. Oil on canvas by Cecilia Edefalk. Photo from Stockholms Auktionsverk.
Participating Artists
Mamma Andersson
Ann-Sofie Back
Idun Baltzersen
Emma Bernhard
Helene Billgren
Monica Bratt
Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe
Barbro Bäckström
Nina Canell
Agnes Cleve
Siri Derkert
Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg
Cecilia Edefalk
Inger Ekdahl
Marie-Louise Ekman
Estrid Ericson
Carolina Falkholt
Eddie Figge
Randi Fisher
Maud Fredin Fredholm
Leonie Geisendorf
Petra Gipp
Denise Grünstein
Annika von Hausswolff
Susanne Henriques
Hertha Hillfon
Sigrid Hjertén
Åsa Jungnelius
Eva Klasson
Hilma af Klint
Greta Knutson
Klara Kristalova
Lotte Laserstein
Maria Lindberg
Tuija Lindström
Tyra Lundgren
Rita Lundqvist
Eva Löfdahl
Maria Miesenberger
(Ann-Marie Forsberg,
Marianne Richter,
Barbro Nilsson
från Märta Måås AB)
Gunvor Nelson
Vera Nilsson
Signe Persson-Melin
Siri Rathsman
Ingegerd Råman
Astrid Sampe
Lena Svedberg
Nell Walden
Jane Wåhlstedt (Laholmskeramik)
Christine Ödlund
Barbro Östlihn