In collaboration with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art and the Malmö Art Museum in Sweden, from 14 December 2024 to 23 February 2025, an exhibition titled The Latvian Collection will take place in the Cupola Hall and 4th Floor Exhibition Halls of the Latvian National Museum of Art. The exhibition will feature works by Latvian artists from the early 20th century, from the collection of the Malmö Art Museum, alongside new, complementary pieces by contemporary artists.
We invite you to read essay by Kristiāna Ābele
“... a piece of the continent, a part of the main”*, which traces the historical context of the Latvian Art Collection's journey to the Malmö Art Museum and, 85 years after the collection was established, the exhibition in Riga.
In late autumn of 1939, with the criminal pact between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR already hanging over the Baltic states like a sword, while Baltic Germans were being repatriated and many cultural treasures were being taken out of Latvia, one particularly notable collection of artworks was moved abroad. However, the departure of these works brought no sense of loss or anxiety but instead pride and joyful expectation. Oscar Elmquist (1885–1954), a customs official in Malmö, in southern Sweden, had allotted funds for the creation of a Latvian art department at the city’s museum, which at the time could already boast of ample collections of Russian and Finnish art.
During the Swedish-Baltic cooperation days in the previous year, a lecture about national elements in Latvian art had been delivered in Malmö by Francis Balodis (1882–1947), Director of the Monument Board, Professor at the University of Latvia and Chair of the Latvian-Swedish Friendship Society. Upon returning to Latvia, he told the press that “next to the old Malmö fortress, transformed into a museum, a new museum building is also constructed, with modern furnishings, new show-cases, storage spaces and spacious laboratories.”* The second main messenger of Latvian culture during the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the Baltic states in Sweden was the artist Ludolfs Liberts, who organised an exhibition of his own work in Stockholm. Members of the aforementioned Latvian-Swedish Friendship Society from Malmö and Lund donated one work from this exhibition to the Malmö Art Museum, thus initiating the representation of Latvian art in its collection.
Liberts, who chaired the Latvian Fine Arts Society, and the historian Balodis were together entrusted with spending Elmquist’s donation, which was intended for the purchase of artworks. To confirm their selection and take over the set of works, the art historian and Director of the Malmö Art Museum Ernst Fischer (1890–1980) arrived from Sweden together with the former lector of Swedish and the History of Sweden at the University of Latvia Harry Wallin (1900–1950), who had formed a broad network of contacts within the local milieu during his Riga period (1929–1936). On November 12, when the entire collection – “2 sculptures, 23 oil paintings and 20 works of graphic art” – was on view in the hall of the University of Latvia for a few hours*, Balodis emphasised that the collection intended for the Malmö Museum was to be “the largest collection of Latvian art abroad” and would “significantly promote Latvian art.”*
Uga Skulme, who was himself among the artists included in this review, stated that “almost all our notable painters will be represented in Malmö”;* however, he also indicated shortcomings. For instance, some other names could have been added, such as Kārlis Miesnieks and Ģederts Eliass. The collection contained paintings by artists who had died quite a long time ago, like Janis Rozentāls, Johann Walter (also known as Walter-Kurau) and Jāzeps Grosvalds, alongside two etchings by the recently deceased Rihards Zariņš. However, the main aim, according to Balodis, was to show “contemporary Latvian art as it has formed in the course of 22 years of independence.”* Arturs Jūrasteters (1905–1941) noted that the selected paintings were “mainly these artists’ works seen and appreciated at recent exhibitions.”* A string of works was chosen from the output of the Riga Artists’ Group and the group Sadarbs. These organizations were sections of the Latvian Fine Arts Society and had both shown at the Riga City Art Museum in autumn 1939. The large number of drawings and prints was likely provided by Liberts, who chaired the State Printing House and Mint, which had also overseen a graphic arts gallery since April 1939. Several women were among the represented graphic artists: Erna Bērziņa (Ķikure), Elza Druja (Druja-Foršū), Otomija Freiberga, Marija Muceniece (Induse-Muceniece) and Zelma Tālberga. The newspaper Jaunākās Ziņas called Kārlis Zāle’s model of a fisherman for the Freedom Monument and a small version of Teodors Zaļkalns’ Pig – two canonical artefacts of national sculpture – especially valuable acquisitions.*
The destinies of three works shown in the hall at the University of Latvia remain unknown, while the rest of the collection soon took on previously unpredicted functions in the cultural-diplomatic migration of artworks. Having returned to Sweden, Harry Wallin still claimed that his main impression of Riga was “a total sense of security and calm atmosphere. Everybody seemingly trusts the future and does not yield to unnecessary fear. Consequently, the group of Swedes in Latvia could not understand the numerous worried articles about the Baltic states emerging in the Swedish press of the time.”* However, totalitarian occupations would soon interfere with the destinies of all the Latvians involved. Already in the first days after the invasion of the Soviet Army in June 1940, Francis Balodis emigrated to Sweden; many of his compatriots would flee there as refugees by the end of the Second World War, and “some Latvians who visited Skåne were glad to discover that the Malmö Art Museum contained the largest Latvian art collection in Sweden. It seemed that this would ease the exile, facilitate the understanding of Latvian beauty by foreigners and promote mutual agreement in the world of higher values.”* In 1947, the Latvian art exposition was complemented with acquisitions from an exhibition at the museum of works by five Latvian artists.
One of those was Niklāvs Strunke, who during his first spring in exile already expressed doubts about Balodis’ statement that “the paintings collection at the Malmö Museum allows one to reconsider the development of Latvian art,” claiming instead that “actually just excerpts and episodes” could be found there.* In the 1950s, the department of Latvian art was moved to smaller premises, and in 1958 – when Fischer, the previous director, had retired – it was closed entirely. Lack of space was given as a reason; besides, maintaining this department would have become a bone of contention in diplomatic relations between Sweden and the USSR. Latvian artists’ works disappeared into the invisible part of the museum collection, not to be seen together again until they appeared in a catalogue-type list, with black-and-white images, published in 1970 by the artist and writer Ojārs Jēgens (1924–1993) in the journal Tilts, in what was an attempt to struggle against oblivion.* His publication was the main guide for those art historians who, after the restoration of Latvia’s independence, sought to establish contact with the Malmö Art Museum in order to clarify the creative outputs of individual artists.
However, following Jēgens’ efforts, almost half a century passed before the destiny of the Latvian collection attracted the attention of the Danish curator Lotte Løvholm. She saw research on the collection as a way to connect to her Latvian family roots. The first reunification of the collection in an exhibition and catalogue was organised in 2022–2023 against the backdrop of an ominous geopolitical situation similar to that which provided the conditions of the collection’s emergence.* This shadow has not dissipated and will hang over Latvian viewers’ experiences, inviting them not only to enjoy fitting the newly re-discovered “excerpts and episodes” into the mosaic of a broader context but also to consider the varied roles of artworks in the collisions of international politics.
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1. “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were […].” Donne, John. XVII. Meditation. Latvian translation by Raimonds Ķirķis and Anna Auziņa. Published in the essay: Auziņa, Anna. Tas zvana tev [It tolls for thee]. Punctum, 2020, 15 Dec. (https://www.punctummagazine.lv/2020/12/15/tas-zvana-tev/).
2. T. Latvijā būtu dibināmi senlaiku dzīvokļu iekārtas muzeji: Prof. Fr. Balodis par vērojumiem Zviedrijā [Museums of olden apartment furnishings should be established in Latvia: Prof. Fr. Balodis talks about observations in Sweden]. Latvijas Kareivis, No. 246, 1938, 28 Oct.
3. See the list of works: Latviešu tēlotājas mākslas darbi mākslas muzejam Malmö pilsētā, Zviedrijā 1939: Izstāde Latvijas Universitātes jaunajā aulā 1939. g. 12. novembrī [Works of Latvian fine art for the museum in the Malmö city, Sweden 1939: Exhibition in the new hall of the University of Latvia on 12th November 1939]. [Rīga: b. i., 1939].
4. Latvju tēlotājas mākslas nodaļa Malmes muzejā [Latvian fine art department at the Malmö Museum]. Jaunākās Ziņas, No. 258, 1939, 13 Nov.
5. Skulme, Uga. Izstādes [Exhibitions]. Daugava, No. 12, 1939, p. 1187.
6. Balodis, Francis. Latviešu mākslinieku darbi Malmes muzejā [Latvian artists’ works at the Malmö Museum]. Latvju Vārds, No. 16, 1945, 24 Febr.
7. Jūrasteters, Arturs. Latviešu mākslinieku darbi Zviedrijā [Latvian artists’ works in Sweden]. Latvijas Kareivis, No. 261, 1939, 16 Nov.
8. Latvju tēlotājas mākslas nodaļa Malmes muzejā. Jaunākās Ziņas, No. 258, 1939, 13 Nov.
9. Zviedri brīnās par savu laikrakstu kņadu ap Baltijas valstīm [Swedes are baffled by the fuss about the Baltic states in their press]. Kurzemes Vārds, No. 269, 1939, 25 Nov.
10. Zanders, J. Pārdomas latviešu mākslinieka izstādē [Reflections in the Latvian artist’s exhibition]. Latvju Ziņas, No. 11, 1951, 15 March.
11. Strunke, Niklāvs. Glezniecības vēstures fakti [Facts of the history of painting]. Latvju Ziņas, No. 17, 1945, 31 May.
12. Jēgens, Ojārs. Mūsu mākslas darbu likteņi: Latviešu mākslas darbi Malmes mūzejā Zviedrijā [Destinies of our artworks: Latvian artworks in the Malmö Museum in Sweden]. Tilts, No. 100–101, 1970, pp. 64–74.
13. See: Lāce, Inga and Lotte Løvholm (eds.). The Latvian Collection: Exhibition Catalogue. Malmö: Malmö Konstmuseum, 2023; Birzaka-Priekule, Līna. Latvijas kolekcija un tās turpinājums [The Latvian collection and its continuation]. Kultūras Diena un Izklaide, 2023, 19 Jan., pp. 14–16.; Ābele, Kristiāna. Šķirsta šķērsgriezums: Izstādes “Latvijas kolekcija” vēsturiskais kodols Malmes Mākslas muzejā [Cross section of a chest: The historical core of the exhibition “The Latvian Collection” in the Malmö Art Museum]. Mākslas Vēsture un Teorija, No. 27, 2023, pp. 82–86.
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