Marie-Louise Ekman
Covered by droit de suite
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Untitled
Signed M.L De Geer Bergenstråhle and dated 1979. Oil on canvas 22.5 x 27.5 cm.
Provenance
Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm.
Bukowski Auktioner AB, auction 570, 2012, cat no. 281.
Tom Böttiger Collection, Stockholm.
Exhibitions
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, "Marie-Louise Ekman", 17 June - 17 September, 2017.
CF Hill, Stockholm, "Samling Tom Böttiger, Part I", 26 September - 15 November 2019.
Literature
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, exhibition catalogue, Marie-Louise Ekman, 2017, illustrated full-page p. 37.
More information
The auction's painting by Marie-Louise Ekman is a brilliant example of her highly personal surrealism: colorful, every day life, boundless, and humorous.
The 1971 painting contains clear references to the surrealist Salvador Dalí. His iconic work 'The Riddle of Wilhelm Tell' was added to Moderna Museet's collection in 1967. Dalí painted the work in 1933 and the motif is full of references to his time. A human-like figure with a large growth from one of the buttocks dominates the painting, a motif that in Ekman's work has been transferred to his own home. The woman is looking for herself in the reflection; she is moving away from the man on the other side of the painting. Her two extra legs are clenched tightly together, clearly signaling that she is not interested in his invitation. The man, as so often in Ekman's work, has an expressionless face. He sits on a stool and smokes, wearing an outfit reminiscent of both Starke Adolf's tights and Picasso's circus performers.
Ekman experimented with Dalí's painting in a more obvious way a few years later in her career, when she (in the spirit of the times) appropriated the work of other artists. She produced a number of paintings with titles such as 'A Salvador Dali Man and an Olle Baertling Painting' (1980) and 'A Dali Monument, a Picasso Monument and an Olle Baertling Painting' (1980).
Artist
Marie-Louise Ekman is without a doubt one of Sweden's most eccentric artists. The consistency in her expression is striking, with a distinctive language that is unmistakably her own.
Ekman's artistry is timeless and continuously relevent. She is a leading and influential artist who often depicts everyday environments, but does not align herself with the absurdist and surrealist art forms. She travels unhindered over artistic buondaries and often ustilises art historical references, incorporating them with pop-culture references. Ekmans konstnärskap har i mycket präglats av hennes anarkistiska och klarsynta angrepp på normalitet som ständigt har manifesterats i en spännvidd som låtit henne ingå i kretsen kring den inflytelserika undergroundtidningen "Puss" och med separatutställningar på Galerie Aronowitsch.
When looking closer at her multifaceted artisty one discovers that she is a recycler. There is barely a motif that is not repeated in more than one context, not a figure that does not stir up déjà vu. One first encounters these elements in objects or paintins, then in movies, tv-seris and radio programmes. Although the media sources vary in theme and tone over the decades, Ekman continues to reference media through her art, and it is thanks to this that Ekman feels forever young.
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