Pelle Swedlund: Vendelmans, London
Past exhibition
Press release
2 - 26 October 2024
44 Great Russell St, WC1B 3JL, Bloomsbury
Tue-Fri. 11am-6pm Sat. 11am-4pm
or by appointment.
I want to make art now - as deep as the riddle of human life itself.
Pelle Swedlund
Vendelmans is proud to present the first exhibition dedicated to Symbolist painter PELLE SWEDLUND (1865-1947) outside of the artist’s native Sweden.
On view in London, the present exhibition brings together a group of works consisting solely of sunsets. A recurring motif throughout his long career, the image of a setting sun was used by SWEDLUND as a metaphor for the fin de siècle and as a tool to transpose to the viewer a sense of melancholic introspection. The accompanying publication contains the first biography of the artist’s life and a catalogue raisonné of the painted works, as well as an essay by MARYANNE STEVENS.
Following his formal education in Stockholm, SWEDLUND continued his training at the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1890s. The foundation stones of his artistic development consisted of encounters with Symbolist ideas and Post-Impressionist techniques, through the work of artists such as PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, PASCAL DAGNAN-BOUVERET, ARNOLD BÖCKLIN and PAUL GAUGUIN.
The artist’s existential urge to find places of ‘Beauty’ led SWEDLUND to live and work in Brittany, Bruges, Rome, Chioggia and Gotland, leaving behind an oeuvre which is truly European. Depictions of these places - showing sunsets, silent cities and strange monuments - were used by the artist to convey his innermost thoughts. Beneath their painted surface, we encounter SWEDLUND’s love for Romantic poetry, his views on social injustice, and ideas around universality and the passage of time.
SWEDLUND participated in the 1901 Venice Biennale and throughout the early twentieth century he exhibited as a representative of Swedish modern art in St. Louis, Berlin, Munich, Budapest, Rome and Paris.
Since his passing in 1947, SWEDLUND’s legacy has largely been forgotten about.