Press Announcement

HERTERVIG – HILL

Exhibition of Lars Hertervig and Carl Fredrik Hill

Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde and Stavanger Art Museum, 2024–25

We are happy to announce the exhibition Hertervig – Hill, which is to be shown at Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, 21 September 2024 – 26 January 2025 and at Stavanger Art Museum, Stavanger, 22 February – 18 May 2025. The exhibition is organized jointly by the two museums in collaboration with Nordic Institute of Art.

This exhibition will present the works of the Norwegian artist Lars Hertervig in dialogue with the oeuvre of the Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill. It will include up to 100 works altogether; both paintings and drawings. Though two highly individual artists from different generations, there are many parallels in both the lives and artistic developments of Hertervig and Hill.

Lars Hertervig (1830–1902) grew up on the island of Borgøy on the south-west coast of Norway outside Stavanger; a landscape that would be a recurring theme in his art. After attending the Royal Drawing School in Oslo, he went on to Düsseldorf in the early 1850s as a student of the Norwegian professor Hans Gude at the Art Academy. Tragically, Hertervig was taken ill and went back to Norway, where he for a period had himself interned at Gaustad mental hospital outside of Oslo. The remains of his life were spent in the domestic environments at Borgøy and in Stavanger, were the artist worked in relative isolation and with limited means. In the 1860s and 70s, Hertervig painted a series of striking landscapes in both oil and watercolour; some representing a fascination for decay, others more contemplative. These works can be seen as the artist’s visions of nature, sometimes perhaps based on vague memories of a particular landscape.

Carl Fredrik Hill (1849–1911) was born in Lund in southern Sweden. After studies at the Art Academy in Stockholm, specializing as a landscape painter, he lived for several years in Paris during the 1870s. Influenced by Camille Corot, Hill would paint – together with other Nordic artists – plein air studies from Barbizon and other places popular among the landscape painters of the day. His early works reflect the ideals of the realist movement and open-air painting. In January 1878, Hill was hospitalized in an institution for the mentally ill in Passy, France, and thereafter at St. Hans hospital in Roskilde and at St. Lars hospital in Lund, where he stayed until 1883. The last three decades of his life, Hill lived with his family in his childhood home of Lund. The artist continued to draw and paint on his own – in isolation – working mostly on paper. While Hill continued to depict landscapes, they now took on a more fantastic air, sometimes relating to his early works. He also drew figures, animals, and imaginary creatures. These expressive works often have the character of dreams or visions.

The project represents the first exhibition ever of Hertervig’s work in Sweden, and it is also the first major exhibition of Hill in Norway in decades. Hertervig – Hill thus aims at introducing the oeuvre of the two artists to new audiences. While the exhibition will present works spanning from the entire production of the two artists, it will emphasize the more visionary or spiritual works of both Hertervig and Hill – works that sometimes are seen as heralding Symbolism and Surrealism. It will highlight both parallels and differences between the works of the two painters.

Hertervig – Hill is curated by Karin Sidén, Hanne Beate Ueland and Knut Ljøgodt. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication with essays by leading art historians in the field.

Karin Sidén, Director of Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, said: “It has for a long time been a wish for me and Prince Eugen´s Waldemarsudde to introduce the Norwegian artist Lars Hertervig's interesting artistry to a Swedish audience. This research-based exhibition presents Hertervig's expressive works in dialogue with paintings and drawings by the acclaimed and influential Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Hill. The exhibition is made possible thanks to a creative and fruitful collaboration between Prince Eugen's Waldemarsudde, Stavanger Art Museum and the Nordic Institute of Art.”

Hanne Beate Ueland, Stavanger Art Museum’s Director, said: “We are happy to present Lars Hertervig’s oeuvre in dialogue with the works of Carl Fredrik Hill. Stavanger Art Museum holds the largest and most comprehensive collection of Hertervig’s art, and we regard it as an important part of our mission to present his art to a wider, international audience. We are grateful for the highly constructive collaboration with Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde and the Nordic Institute of Art – and look forward to showing the exhibition in Stavanger in spring 2025.”

Knut Ljøgodt, Director of Nordic Institute of Art, said: “For the Nordic Institute of Art – whose mission is to stimulate the interest in and research on Nordic art history in an international context – the collaboration within the Nordic region is of particular importance. We are therefore happy to be a part of introducing Hertervig to a Swedish audience, as well as bringing Hill to Norway for the first time in decades – in partnership with two outstanding museums such as Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde and Stavanger Art Museum.”

CONTACT

INSTAGRAM

FACEBOOK

NEWSLETTER