This autumn brings two separate exhibitions with one entrance and ticket at Nationalmuseum. One part of the gallery shows Christer Strömholm’s photographs taken in Paris.
Long considered one of the most significant Swedish photographers, Christer Strömholm is among the few to have achieved widespread international recognition. The exhibition includes around 200 photographs taken in Paris in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, mostly portraits of artists and leading cultural figures but also some unfamiliar images of contemporary Paris. The portraits were taken during the years that Strömholm lived and worked in Paris, where he collaborated with Pontus Hultén and Lasse Söderberg to document many artists and authors. The exhibition includes portraits of Paul Andersson, André Breton, Olle Bonniér, Torun Bülow-Hübe, Niki de Saint Phalle, Giacometti, Yves Klein, Bengt Lindström, François Mauriac and Tinguely, among others.
Strömholm began his artistic career not as a photographer, but as a student of fine art in Dresden and Paris. Aiming to be a painter, he also studied under Isac Grünewald and Otte Sköld in Stockholm. Continuing his studies after the Second World War at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Strömholm began experimenting with large format cameras and switched to photography as his main medium. In the late 1940s he started creating images inspired by abstract painting, with his interest focused solely on form. Soon, however, he was increasingly turning his attention to the motif, producing images verging on subjective documentary photography. Strömholm’s most notable works include images documenting the lives of Parisian transsexuals, taken between 1958 and 1968 and published in the book Les amies de Place Blanche. Strömholm also achieved prominence as an educator after setting up the Fotoskolan photography school in Stockholm in 1962, where his own experience, learning and ideas came to influence a long list of photographers.
Exhibition curator is Joakim Strömholm in collaboration with Anna Nilsdotter.
Christer Strömholm : Portraits in Paris
6 October 2022 – 8 January 2023
Nationalmuseum
Södra Blasieholmshamnen 2
111 48 Stockholm, Sweden
https://www.nationalmuseum.se/en
