The Baltic Exhibition 100 years on
A new art exhibition contributed to by David Jackson, Professor of Russian & Scandinavian Art Histories at the University of Leeds, opens at the Malmö Art Museum this autumn.
Baltic Reflections sees renowned Russian artworks, shown at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914, share the walls with fin de siècle Scandinavian art.
The Baltic Exhibition developed into one of the biggest art demonstrations ever seen in the Nordic region with over 3,500 exhibited artworks. It displayed foremost contemporary art from the countries around the Baltic Sea represented by well-known artists such as the Dane Vilhelm Hammershøi, the Finn Aksel Gallen Kallela the Russian Valentin Serov and the Swede Anders Zorn.
During the exhibition, the First World War broke out, followed a few years later by the Russian revolution of 1917. As a consequence, some of the exhibited Russian art remained in Malmö. This exhibition puts the renowned Russian artworks in dialogue with turn of the century Scandinavian art from the museum’s collection.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication that puts the Baltic Exhibition into an historical and cultural perspective, and reassesses its significance. Articles deal specifically with the Russian and Swedish contributions to the show, as well as the wider artistic milieu between such key concepts as Realism, Expressionism and the breakthrough to Modernism. The book includes essays by Professor David Jackson, Torsten Gunnarsson (former Director of Collections at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), and by Cecilia Widenheim, Martin Sundberg and Anders Rosdahl from the Malmö Art Museum.
Baltic Reflections at the Malmö Art Museum opens on 11 October 2014 and runs throughout the spring. The exhibition will be inaugurated by the Mayor of Malmö, Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, at the Preview on 10 October.
The team includes Professor David Jackson, based in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, who used his expertise in Russian art to address that aspect of the exhibition. Professor Jackson is a specialist in Russian and Nordic art who has published widely in these fields and worked on many exhibitions in collaboration with such partners as The National Gallery, The Van Gogh Museum and Stockholm’s Nationalmuseum.
Professor Jackson said of the exhibition:
‘This is a project I have long wanted to work on, having seen the Russian works in store almost two decades ago. The exhibition will be a major art historical event that brings back into public view a fascinating and seldom seen collection of forgotten masterpieces by important Russian artists.’
Cecilia Widenheim, Museum Director of the Malmö Art Museum, said:
‘David Jackson’s expertise on Russian art has been of great value for the curatorial team of the museum organizing the exhibition. The profound input he has provided on the Russian art scene during the years prior to World War One has helped to flesh out the background regarding the works and the implicit and explicit relations.’
See here for more information.