Olof Sager-Nelson, Princess Maleine (Girl with swans),
1895. Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm.

Spring Exhibition
2026
28 March – 25 April

Opening hours Mon – Fri 10–18 Sat 12–16

About forty magnificent works by renowned artists are presented in this rich exhibition, where landscapes, genre painting, still lifes, and detailed portraiture from the 18th century to the surrealism of the 1930s fill the gallery rooms at Åmells. From Swedish painters in the service of the French court during the 18th century to some of the most idiosyncratic artists in Nordic art history, figures who in different ways went against the current, many are represented here. Among them are August Strindberg (1849–1912), Ernst Josephson (1851–1906), and Ivan Aguéli (1869–1917).

Among the most distinctive Swedish artists is Olof Sager-Nelson (1868–1896), who found support from two of the most important art collectors of his time, Pontus Fürstenberg (1827–1902) and Ernest Thiel (1859–1947). We are pleased to present Sager-Nelson’s painting Princess Maleine in the exhibition, whose title is taken from Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama of 1889 bearing the same name. Writing to Pontus Fürstenberg in Gothenburg on 5 February 1895, Olof Sager-Nelson remarked: “There is one thing, a girl in a landscape that I finished today, which I am truly pleased with.” The painting belongs to the portraits that Sager-Nelson himself referred to as portraits morals, or self-portraits, created during the autumn of 1894 and the spring of 1895 when the artist was in Paris.

Among the views of Stockholm we find View of Stockholm with the Royal Palace and the Parliament Building, signed by Anna Palm de Rosa (1859–1924) and dated 1904. It depicts a clear summer day when the new parliament building had already altered the cityscape. The strolling townspeople and the play of waves reflecting the sunlight prepare us for what spring is about to bring. The exhibition primarily presents works by Swedish artists, but also includes oil paintings by the Danish artists Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800–1856) and Peder Severin Krøyer (1851–1909), as well as a sculptural relief by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), the sculptor who was honored with his own museum in Copenhagen.

Alongside the Nordic works, we have chosen to present Young Woman Feeding a Parrot with Grapes by Hieronymus van der Mij (Netherlands, 1687–1761). In this symbol-laden painting with an equivocal undertone, we find a fruit still life forming part of the composition, in visual dialogue with Jensen’s magnificent oil painting Antique Urn with Fruits and Berries. The still life as a timeless genre was previously highlighted in Åmells’ exhibition Still Lifes Through the Ages (8–22 March 2025), and in Åmells’ spring exhibition Isaac Grünewald’s (1889–1946) expressionist Still Life with Flowers serves to mark how these motifs continue to live on through different periods and stylistic movements.

Åmells welcomes spring with an exquisite selection consisting mainly of oil paintings, but also watercolours and sculptures. Images from everyday or working life somewhere in Sweden, striking views of Stockholm with its water, archipelago motifs from the west coast, and richly detailed still lifes whose symbolism transcends time and space.

Click to read the catalogue

READ THE CATALOGUE HERE (IN SWEDISH)

Selected Works

Olle Hjortzberg,Wildflowers,
Oil on panel, 73 x 100 cm. Signed and dated ”OLLE HJORTZBERG 1942”.

Olle Hjortzberg

Wildflowers

In this harmonious floral still life from 1942, painted when the artist had reached the age of seventy, the variegated bouquet shimmers in the light streaming through the delicate curtain. The cluster of flowers is rendered with refinement, each wildflower allowed to stand out from the whole. The composition is characteristic of Hjortzberg’s mature painting, where the light brushstrokes reveal the hand of a master, executed in a clear palette that evokes both the Italian Early Renaissance and the Oriental art he encountered during his study travels in his youth. At the same time, the painting is above all a synthesis of the Swedish summer, wild and free. Wildflowers is a delicate floral still life, no less admirable for the composition’s simple grandeur and Hjortzberg’s unforced, naturalistic rendering. The splendour of the flowers becomes here a manifestation of the inexhaustible, eternal flora, presented in a fresh palette sparkling with all the colours of summer.

Ragnar Sandberg,In the Hammock,
Oil on canvas, 39 x 48 cm, signed and dated ”RS 35”.

Ragnar Sandberg

In the Hammock

In the Hammock was painted in 1935, a year in which Ragnar Sandberg produced some of his most highly regarded works. The yellow tones that here set a playful note and evoke a sense of summer are characteristic of the artist’s work from this period. The painting is dominated by ochre, green, red, and pink hues with touches of white and light blue, and depicts a woman in a sunhat reclining in a hammock, leisurely reading a newspaper in a lush summer garden. To create a striking contrast within the image, the artist has chosen to paint the woman’s legs and feet black, in harmony with the dark purple stripes that give form to her blouse. Sandberg’s skill as a colourist and his treatment of light come fully into their own here, and the carefree motif stands in contrast to the sombre urban scenes that so often characterize the visual world of the 1930s.

Carl Kylberg, Morning in the Harbour,
Olil on canvas, 100 x 82 cm. Signed ”Carl Kylberg”. Executed 1939.

Carl Kylberg

Morning in the Harbour

Morning in the Harbour was painted in Carl Kylberg’s Stockholm studio in 1939 and depicts the view across Strandvägshamnen with a ship in sight, while at the same time functioning as a dream image with a symbolist effect. It is a painting representative of Kylberg’s work in terms of theme: the journey and the vessel. The depiction is liberatingly schematic in a luminous composition where a bright yellow disc of the sun emerges indistinctly above the cobalt-blue ship. In Kylberg’s paintings the vessels glide across the water, dreamlike and mysterious, and he disregards the ship’s rigging, ropes, and other technical maritime details that might disturb the spiritual unity of the image. The underlying structures of horizontal and vertical brushstrokes create depth, and the layering of colours is Kylberg’s hallmark: a cobalt-blue ship and city buildings in the same hue form parts of the background, with yellow water and a ruby-red foreground. These are not pure colour fields; rather, the colours blend into one another without crossing the boundaries of their respective layers. Morning in the Harbour is painted in evening light, when the sun approaches the horizon in a felicitous union of tranquil nature and daydream, and in this sense it is typical of Kylberg’s many striking depictions.

Olof Sager-Nelson, Princess Maleine (Girl with swans),
Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm, signed and dated Olof Nelson Paris -95.

Olof Sager-Nelson

Princess Maleine
(Girl with swans)

Olof Sager-Nelson’s princess exists in the borderland between childhood and adulthood, yet she is very much still a child. The girl merges with the surrounding nature; her white dress becomes part of the shimmer of the water, and the curls that fall over her shoulders take on the same reddish-brown hue as the forest’s foliage. The dense landscape in the background on the far side of the water, opening a path toward an unknown place, recalls Munch’s visual language with its undulating contours. The girl’s gaze is slightly lowered and her thoughts seem distant. On the still, mirror-like water behind her, two white swans swim toward one another as if in conversation. The white swan symbolizes purity, and swans in pairs often represent love, which is the subject of Sager-Nelson’s painting. It is no coincidence that Sager-Nelson chose this bird, as it underscores the innocent princess’s longing to be reunited with the love that has been taken from her. Princess Maleine, whose title is taken directly from Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama of 1889 bearing the same name, tells of how human beings stand helpless before a higher power. Sager-Nelson was drawn to the soulful symbolism that also found expression in the worlds of theatre and music.

See the artworks in our online gallery

Spring Exhibition 202628 March – 25 April