Sigrid Hjertén - Bright Colors in Spite of Mental Illness

Sigrid Hjertén´s life story I full of beauty, strength and tragedy. Maybe even a story of feminism. She was a Swedish painter, known for her strong colors in her expressionist style. Her work often reflected her personal experiences, earlier her family life, later her struggle with schizophrenia, probably source of the emotional depth of her oevre. Hjertén also became an important figure in the Swedish art scene, since she was married to the influential and strongly criticised Swedish painter Isaac Grünewald, with whom she lived in Paris 1920 - 1932 and in their later years in the beautiful Grünewald Villa I Saltsjöbaden. Together, they formed a notable artistic partnership. Both their lifes were marked by periods of her mental illness, which became more apparent from ca. 1930. An illness which could not be cured by that time and made hospitalisation necessary in the last 12 years of her life. She died 1948 from complications of a lobotomy. Sigrid was born in Sundsvall 1885, went to school in Stockholm and was trained in textile crafts in London and Stockholm later on. In 1910 she went to Paris, started painting, when she became part of Henri Matisse´s art circle, which gave her the chance to have her first exibition in 1912 together with the group De 8. She also met her later husband Isaak Grünewald in this circle. They married in 1911 and their son Iván was born the same year. She initially painted homeinteriors, houses, stilleben and portraits in a decorative style. Around 1910 she successively transformed her style to expressionism. In 1918 the great Expressionism Exhibition took place in Liljevalchs Arthall in Stockholm and Sigrid Hjertén showed her paintings together with Isaac Grünewald and Leander Engström. Most of the critics were negative and it took many years and many exhibitions in Europe until her unique style and the importance of her contribution to Swedish expressionism was recognised.