Beloved in Nordic countries for her highly original style, Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946) is relatively unknown to the rest of the world. Overcoming immense personal struggles and working in a remote location for decades, she produced a powerful body of work through sheer force of will. This exhibition affirms her rightful place in the story of modern art.
Following Schjerfbeck’s journey from art school in Paris to her final days in Sweden, the exhibition illustrates her shift from traditional and realistic subjects to a simplified, spare style. In the early 1900s, using her mother and neighbors as models, she painted abstractly, paring down her subjects in form and color and developing a bold, new language.
Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck is the first exhibition to showcase the work of the artist in a major United States museum. Featuring nearly 60 works—including generous loans from the Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, other Finnish museums, and private collections in Finland and Sweden—Seeing Silence illuminates Schjerfbeck as a valuable voice of modernism.
The exhibition is made possible by Elsa A. Brule.
This exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with the Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum.
Helene Schjerfbeck (Finnish, 1862‒1946). Self-Portrait (detail), 1912. Oil on canvas, 17 1/8 × 16 1/2 in. (43.5 × 42 cm). Finnish National Gallery Collection, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki (A-2016-51). Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Yehia Eweis