Sigrid Hjertén (1885-1948) Sweden

Sigrid Hjertén initially trained to be a textile artist, but after studying with Henri Matisse at his open academy in Paris from 1910 to 1911 she devoted herself exclusively to painting. Color and form were of central importance for Hjertén, who in her expressionist style experimented with the contrasting interplay of warm and cool colors. She playfully used dramatic and emotional qualities of color, lending strength to her compositions. Like her husband Isaac Grünewald, Hjertén was an important representative of Swedish Modernism and their paintings have many similarities in terms of color and motif, although Hjertén’s colors often are slightly milder and her contours are not as strongly demarcated as Grünewald’s. Cézanne and Matisse were both important sources of inspiration and in conjunction with her move to Paris in the 1920s French cityscapes and landscapes became increasingly common motifs. In the 1930s the yellow color that typified Hjertén became predominant in her works and stylistically her paintings moved ever-closer to Van Gogh.