For many years, the Edstrand Foundation was able to boast of a considerable art collection. To be precise: a small museum situated on Slottsgatan, where those interested could come certain days each month to enjoy the refined atmosphere and to bone up on the art of Ivan Aguèli and Karl Isakson. The man behind the initiative, financier Reinhold Edstand, who died at an early age, had far-reaching plans to build a collection consisting of important contemporary painting, sculpture and furniture. Certain circumstances, among them the acquisition of an important painting of Fernand Lèger, suggest that the collection was to have been given a more international profile had fate allowed him to fully realize his dream. His sisters, Gunhild and Thekla, the latter of whom assumed principal responsibility after his death in 1923, focused almost all their interest on the leading artists of the province, however, and they eventually became well-known as patrons of the emerging generation of Scanian artists. Keeping up the collecting and caring for the family home occupied all of Thekla Edstrand's time. In latter years, she was assisted in this by her gallery-owning nephew, Mårten Nordqvist. In 1951 she was awarded the Illis Quorum medal for her patronage of art.

The Edstrand name thus became associated with the art of Scania ­ which was rather similar to Danish art of the same time, only less radical ­ keeping alive the traditions absorbed by great names such as Ernst Norlind, Emil Olsson, Johan Johansson and Tora Vega Holmström at the art schools of Germany and France during the period preceding World War I. The experimentation of these artists, inspired partly by symbolist and expressionist and partly by "cèzannesque" ideals, was channeled in a more placid direction during the 20s and 30s under the influence of the southern Swedish landscape. The impact of the Scanian cultural environment was powerful, and even though European reminiscences made themselves felt, it was the genre-bound studies of ordinary and everyday things that dominated the scene ­ occasionally aspiring to "epic" dimensions and monumentality.

The result was a painting culture of distinctly local flavor whose high degree of workmanship did not preclude stagnation. The astonishingly high productivity level of many of the leading exponents of the modified cubism and expressionism of the time was linked to their phlegmatic approach, so appealing to the public. The idiom of Jules Schyl and Gerhard Wihlborg could probably be popularly defined as contemporary, but their palettes were hardly dedicated to the serious exploration of the nature of painting, but rather to extolling the beauty of the native soil or the mythical charms of the world at large, dimly perceived behind closed eyelids.

This calm still prevailed when the Edstrand Foundation came into being ­ at least on the surface. Thekla Edstrand and her circle probably saw this mainly as a consolidation of tastes in the humanist spirit. With the wording of the aims and objectives of the Foundation and its emphasis on supporting young art, a pact was concluded with the future, however ­ and thereby with the unpredictable. The Foundation actually came into being during a period of transition, when powerful forces had already began to undermine the prevailing provincial view of art. This current, while not pretending to be a call for revolt, had already been established by some of the artists born around 1910. They tried to open a window to the world through an almost romantic, non-academic position promoting ideas drawn from the subjective treatment of the classical repertoire of motifs found in late Edvard Munch and Pierre Bonnard. Another, and younger, phalanx consisted of artists who found in the contact with the cross-disciplinary trends of the continent ­ until that time of scant importance in Sweden ­ the logical solution to the problem of cultural isolation and alienation that had become acute during the war years 1940-45.

In celebrating its 50th birthday on June 27, the Edstrand Foundation has elected to focus on this important, but nowadays mostly forgotten transitional period by awarding two of its former Fellows yet another prize and providing them with an opportunity to exhibit some of their previous as well as more recent work at this year's award exhibition at the Rooseum.

Brita af Klercker: By the studio window. Selfportrait.
 
 

A characteristic of Brita af Klercker's painting from the late 30s on is ­ to use a current expression ­ its freshness. It is present both in the observed color and her bold characterization of line. Her ability to use the means of expression at her disposal in a manner that is at the same time free and economical, improvisational and stringent, her independence of any sense of naturalistic accountability and her feeling for the aura of an individual, the view through a window, or a landscape make possible a simplicity, while acknowledging fully the minute nuances of the motif. This explains why she is so often successful with portraits ­ a genre surrounded by almost insurmountable difficulties. In her art, immediacy and intuition have replaced the more or less formalistic system of rules whereby a painting usually proclaims itself a message. Her art thus refuses to beidentified with a certain school ­ unless it is a generally colorist one ­ and it was precisely adhering to this pure painterly way of seeing that enabled it to act with an urgent sense of freedom.

Anders Österlin: Untitled
 
 

The foremost contribution of the Imaginists is that they emphasized the primary role of signs in artistic representation. So what if their slogan was the power of imagination ­ it was nevertheless by propounding a media-transcending magic tied to language itself that they refuted accusations of trendiness and won adherents outside their own circle. It is only natural that Österlin came to play an important role here, given his combinatorial talent with signs. There are no classically founded nature abstractions in Österlin's art ­ it is a play with pictorial constituents that guide the viewer to the very mystery of the production of meaning. Like Paul Klee, who served as inspiration, Österlin works with the line, texture, color and figure as such ­ in other words, "abstractly" ­ in a spirit of openness to their associative content and the imagination that the viewer shares with the artist. All of his works are marked by a strong sense of poetry. That it is a question of poeticity rather than illustration is clearly evident from the universality and broadness of his idiom ­ qualities that enable him to effortlessly cross the line into industrial culture and take on tasks within decorative art and advertising, with impressive and witty results. One could say that Österlin constitutes the missing link between Max Ernst and Andy Warhol. He is, at any rate, an artist with a highly developed sense of the connection between the autonomous abundance of inner life and that which Saussure, the founder of modern linguistics and semiotics, has called the life of signs in society.

When Anders Österlin received the Edstrand Fellowship in 1959 he was already an established pioneer in spite of his young age, on an art scene that had been freed from its previous idyllism. If one scrutinizes the list of fellows for the next ten years, it becomes clear just how much Scania and Malmö opened up to the surrounding world and drew

closer to a general, aesthetic crisis consciousness. The fellowships of the Foundation thus mirror the general development. By this, I want to make it clear that I do not want the above to be construed as accusing the Foundation of trying to politically influence the cultural direction. In looking back, we nevertheless have reason to applaud the success and progress to which this, on the whole, very modest, support has contributed. This satisfaction should be weighed against the inescapable burden of responsibility of maintaining a clear view of the developing art scene while making the necessary decisions, year in and year out. Selecting the recipients may seem like a relatively uncomplicated and subjective task ­ at least for those with "experience". Those who have participated in a high-level selection process know, however, how demanding it is, and how little remains of the taste of power when the small voice of conscience is heard and misgivings that serious mistakes are about to be made pop up. For that reason, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessors and colleagues on the board of the Edstrand Foundation, artists Gunnar Norrman and John Wipp, who have devoted much time and energy to the conscientious selection and presentation of candidates for the Fellowship. It is largely thanks to their efforts and to those of their assistants on the nomination committee that the work of the Foundation still appears as meaningful as ever ­ even now that the art collection has been broken up and the Foundation is limited to capital management and support in the form of grants.

It is to be regretted that practical considerations forced the sale of the Foundation's property and art collection in the 70s ­ in the case of the latter, except for a small number of paintings and sculptures on deposition at the Malmö Museum of Art. This put an end to new acquisitions. The exhibitions of the works of the grant recipients at the Rooseum in recent years re-establishes the old tradition, however, by offering a new experience to the public, thereby leaving anonymity behind.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary a complete list of the recipients of the Foundation Fellowship since 1951 and of the presidents of the Foundation since 1950 is presented on pages XXX of this catalogue. The latter shows that the Foundation is still administered by members of the Edstrand/Nordqvist and Roos families, thus guaranteeing the continuation of sound fiscal policy also in the future.

Finally, I would like to thank the Rooseum and its acting director Magnus Jensner for their work in presenting, for the third consecutive year, the works of the Edstrand Fellowship recipients, which this time covers not only all of Scandinavia, but also a dramatic era in the history of Swedish art.

Ola Billgren