Madeleine Pyk was born in 1934 in Stockholm and grew up on Södermalm overlooking Slussen. Here she used to sit and look out over the view outside the window of the cityscape with the Katarina lift, the people and the water. Her summers were spent with the family out at Skägga on Värmdö outside Stockholm with animals, nature and play.
Animals, nature, water, birds and old buildings that were in Madeleine Pyk's childhood surroundings began to shape the fantasy world that is reflected in the artist's work. Today, the places, objects and creatures – both the real ones and those that only exist in her head – are role models in her art and contribute to her narrative of poetic painting. Her imaginative and colorful work distinguishes Pyk as a Naïve artist.
Naïvism as an art style is based on viewing the world through the eyes of a child. And Madeleine Pyk is a trained artist who paints in a style that is perceived as childish and imaginative, and describes her works as stories about memories and experiences that can come from both childhood and later encounters with people.
In every Swedish home there is a kitchen, a bathroom and a painting by Madeleine Pyk.
In her work there is humor and playfulness but also seriousness and tenderness. As a young girl, Madeleine suffered from mental illness and saw a psychologist in Switzerland. Drawing her experiences was part of the process. Even in the darkest times, she claims to have made drawings full of humor and calls herself an optimist since birth.
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It is not only the optimism, play and imagination that have been present since childhood - but also the art. Madeleine's aunt Margit, grandmother Rosa and her father Ludvig in turn were artists and it was no stranger to the creative girl to apply to art school to continue developing her artistry.
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Between 1951 and 1955 Madeleine Pyk studied at Konstfack in Stockholm and continued her artist education at the Academy of Fine Arts 1963-1967. She debuted in 1956 with an exhibition at Lilla Paviljongen in Stockholm, a place that was both an antiquarian, art salon and literary cafe where several visual artists and poets debuted between 1939 and 1980. In 1972 she was named "Sweden's most diligent painter" by the head of culture at SvD, Stig Johansson, and today she is one of Sweden's most popular artists. "In every Swedish home there is a kitchen, a bathroom and a painting by Madeleine Pyk," playwright Kristina Lugn once said.
Her pictures are characterized, in addition to the naïve style, by strong colors, idyllic landscape scenes, images of different seasons with warm summer colors and icy winter landscapes - sometimes populated by people and felines. The tiger has become a signature over the years in Pyk's imaginative works and reappears both in the company of other figures but also in individual portraits.
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Another source of inspiration that Madeleine herself mentioned is her grandfather who was a man of adventure, constantly on the move. Traveling has become an important part of Pyk's life. As a young woman, she spent the summers in Rome and for 25 years she spent her winters in Nice, France with her life partner Kri Bohm. France has played an important role in Pyk's artistry and French influences are evident in her work. But study trips to Brazil and countries around Africa have also inspired the artist's visual language over the years, and exotic environments are not uncommon. Her art, in turn, has inspired people around the world when she has exhibited in places such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris and Botswana.
Pyk has worked with several forms of visual art over the years. In the 1960s, Pyk traveled around the world with both brushes and a camera in her luggage and both painted pictures in oil and photographed. In 2016, her photographs were exhibited together with paintings in a retrospective at Krapperup's art gallery in the exhibition With Brush and Pentax through Europe. The exhibition contained paintings and photographs from 1959 until today.
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With humor and playfulness as characteristics, Madeleine Pyk continues to paint her colorful fantasies. Today she lives and works in Skillinge in Österlen, Sweden.
Jacques Werup and Barbro Lindgren have had books illustrated by Madeleine Pyk, and she herself has written books such as Marmorbadaren from 1978. Anja Notini published in 1990 the book Jag leker att jag liver which is about the artist and in 1987 came the film Boxas med molnen by Kerstin Odhenkrans which is also about Pyk.
Today, Madeleine Pyk is represented at the Moderna Museet, in the collections of the City of Stockholm, the Norrköping Museum, the Museum in Västerås, the Museum in Umeå and the Museum in Östersund. In 2008, she was awarded the Illis Quorum, a royal medal awarded by the government to reward efforts for cultural, scientific and other public benefit purposes. Her works sell for tens of thousands on the auction market, with her current record at $64,265 for Krocket (2013)
