Lena Cronqvist
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'Myrliljor I'
Signed Lena Cronqvist and dated 1973. Oil on canvas 140 x 185 cm.
Provenance
Galerie Belle, Västerås.
Exhibitions
Galerie Belle, Västerås, exhibition no 107.
Literature
"Lena Cronqvist - en presentation med text och dikter av Tobias Berggren, Lena Cronqvist, Göran Sonnevi och Göran Tunström", published by Carl-Johan Bolander, Galerie Belle, Västerås, 1979, illustrated p. 42.
More information
Lena Cronqvist is a versatile and celebrated artist who has explored a variety of styles and themes throughout her career. In the 1970s, after recovering from a serious illness, she turned to nature painting in a way that would characterize her artistic expression during that decade.
Nature offered her a safe space. Close and detailed studies of the forest and ground vegetation became a healing substitute for compulsory medication and institutionalized care. For a period of time, Lena Cronqvist worked almost therapeutically with precisely realistic large-format studies of nature.
In the painting 'Myrliljor I' (Marsh lilies), the artist has carefully depicted the different stages of the herb's flowering. The large canvas is covered with marsh lilies, the inflorescences shining in bright yellow, the clusters of fruit in red-orange, and in between the withered flowers as stamens in pale grey. In another version of the motif, 'Vissna myrliljor' (Withered marsh lilies) from the same period, the lilies have withered completely and laid down as a patterned blanket over the ground. It is astonishing that at the same time as Cronqvist was creating these magnificent nature paintings, she was also immersing herself in light, small-scale plein air painting on Koster in the Bohuslän archipelago.
Like her role model, the artist Inge Schiöler, she regularly returns to the archipelago. Ever since she bought a summer house on the island in 1964, she has been painting small expressive landscapes glowing with colour. Like Schiöler, she captures the magnificence of nature in what is close at hand. Lena Cronqvist's nature paintings from 1965 to 1980 provide perspective on the great drama and the main direction of her work, which focuses more on human life and death.
(The poem "Mamma, Mamma" by Lena Cronqvist was printed in "Lena Cronqvist", published by Carl-Johan Bolander, Galerie Belle, Västerås, 1979 )
About Galerie Belle
Carl-Johan Bolander was a gallery owner who originally gained his genuine interest in art by visiting art galleries during his travels in the family business, a coffee roastery in Västerås.
Between 1967 and 1987, Carl-Johan Bolander ran Galerie Belle in Västerås, which quickly established itself as one of Sweden's leading galleries for contemporary Swedish art. He approached the new and the young artists who today are considered pioneers. Several of those whom Bolander was early or first to show, such as Lena Cronqvist and Jan Håfström, are still among the most renowned artists today. Carl-Johan Bolander passed away on 28 February 2016. He chose to leave his large art collection, comprising about 180 works, as a testamentary gift to Norrköping Art Museum.
Artist
Lena Cronqvist is born and raised in Karlstad. Her interest for the arts came early in her life, and she spent the first year of her studies in England, near Bristol’s Art School. Upon her arrival back in Sweden, Cronqvist began a short-lived education at Konstfack, leaving to study painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. When examining Lena Cronqvist's painting, it delves into "painting" in its more traditional sense. She is indeed a painter in the grand modern tradition, frequently turning to Edvard Munch and Francis Bacon’s art as inspirational sources. Yet she also had numerous art historical references and a deep love for the craft. Cronqvist excelled as a colourist, finding harmony in the most unusual colour combinations – few have managed to paint warmth and cold successfully at the same time. Her subject matter is often perceived as challenging and overly private by many. She often models herself for her art, posing in mundane situations imbued with a sharp psychological character. Her “Modonna-pictures” from the 1970s are a good example of this. She turns our gaze away from the conventional, notably in her portrayal and depiction of girls, which is fascinating. Cronqvist depicts these girls as ugly, simple, and altogether uncomfortable – a great contrast to how woman were normally portrayed in art. In more recent years, Lena Cronqvist has studied the effect of aging, using herself as a study. Moreover, Cronqvist is a very successful sculptor, and several of her works in bronze have been sold great sums in the auction world. She is also gifted in graphic productions, of which “Strindbergsmappen” is the most well-known. Among her most renowned works is "The Betrothal," a paraphrase of Jan van Eyck's symbol-laden painting "The Arnolfini Portrait." In Cronqvist's reinterpretation, artist and husband Göran Tunström are the main characters, with equally weighty symbolism but carrying entirely different meanings. Where van Eyck's painting features a loyal dog, Cronqvist replaces it with a cat—a symbol of independence.
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