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cover pictures in the 2001:1 issue are taken from the book Strindberg.
Målaren och fotografen (Strindberg. Painter and Photographer.
- National Museum Exhibition Catalogue No. 624, ISBN 91-7100-634-6),
published by the National Museum in Stockholm in connection with the
exhibition being held at the museum until 13 May, and due to be mounted
in Copenhagen at the Statens Museum for Kunst 9 June - 16 September
this year, and at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris 15 October 2001
- 27 January 2002. An English-language version of the richly illustrated
book will be published by the Yale University Press. Everyone knows
that Strindberg was a brilliant prose writer, poet, and world-ranking
dramatist; not everyone realizes he was also an artist and photographer
who pioneered revolutionary techniques. Per Hedström, who also
edited the book, provides an elegant and comprehensive account of
Strindberg's achievements as a pictorial artist, and articles investigate
Strindberg's fascinating and innovative experiments in the field of
photography. Strindberg's astonishing essay "The New Arts! Or
the Role of Chance in Artistic Creation" is reprinted in the
book, and the recognized expert on Strindberg as a painter, Göran
Söderström, contributes an article on Strindberg's visits
to France and his relationships with the Scandinavian artists' colony
as well as French artists (notably Gauguin), and also an eye-opening
article on how Strindberg influenced Carl Larsson as an artist, rather
than vice versa as is so often assumed. (This article is reprinted
in English in this issue.) |
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book is replete with high-quality reproductions of Strindberg's paintings
and photographs. Most of Strindberg's paintings were seascapes or
depictions of shores: as Per Hedström demonstrates, Strindberg
tended to paint when he found himself unable to write, and this usually
coincided with stays in the Stockholm archipelago, or situations in
which he had cause to remember his time there. Many of Strindberg's
paintings were of navigation marks, which he frequently repeated in
different versions. On our front cover we feature The White Mare II,
a wooden structure painted white and contrasting eerily with the black
diorite rock (it features in the novel By the Open Sea); on the back
cover is his thought-provoking Stormy Sea. Brush Buoy. Both paintings
are from 1892. |
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Göran
Printz-Påhlson
Peter Graves |
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| Göran
Printz-Påhlson celebrated his 70th birthday on 31 March,
2001. Well-known in Sweden as one of the leading poets and essayists
of his age, and at least as well known throughout the academic
world in Britain and North America, he has also been an advisory
editor of Swedish Book Review since its launch in 1983.
He lived in Cambridge for many years, but has now moved back
to his native Skåne. We are delighted to congratulate
him on his birthday, and to mark the occasion Peter Graves has
written an appreciation of his writings and translated some
of his poems. |
Peter Graves, Göran
Printz-Påhlson |
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Carola
Hansson
Irene Scobbie |
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| Carola
Hansson has published novels regularly since 1983, but it was
her novel Andrej (André, 1994), nominated for
the prestigious August Prize, which made her name. Since then
she has to date published a further two successful novels, Steinhof
(1997) and Den älskvärde (A Complaisant Man,
2000), and won no fewer than eight literary awards. Irene Scobbie
provides an introduction to Carola Hansson's life and novels
and presents extracts from her translations of Steinhof
and Den älskvärde. |
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Agneta
Pleijel
Silvester Mazzarella |
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| Agneta
Pleijel was born in Stockholm in 1940, and after academic studies
in Lund and Gothenburg became a writer and journalist, resigning
as cultural editor of Aftonbladet in 1980 in order to
devote herself full time to creative writing. She has achieved
success in virtually all types of writing - prose, poetry, drama,
reportage and criticism. Her first novel was Vindspejare
(He Who Observeth the Wind, 1987). Silvester Mazzarella presents
his translation of an extract from her latest novel, Lord
Nevermore (2000). |
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Strindberg,
Carl Larsson and the frescos at the National Museum
Göran Söderström, transl.
Laurie Thompson |
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| Göran
Söderström's article appears in the book Strindberg.
Målaren och fotografen (Strindberg. Painter and
Photographer) from which our cover pictures are taken, and
which was published by the National Museum of the Fine Arts
in Stockholm to accompany an exhibition. Göran Söderström
is an art historian and the leading expert on Strindberg and
creative art. He is a former head of the Strindberg Museum,
and works for the City of Stockholm. His book Strindberg
och bildkonsten (Strindberg and Pictorial Art, 1972, new
ed. 1990) is the standard work on the subject. |
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