Max Walter Svanberg

Max Walter Svangerg’s (1912-94) visual world, unique and quirky in Swedish art life, attracted international attention in the 1940s and 1950s; a fate or happiness few Swedish artists have ever known.

André Breton, one of the principals of the Surrealist movement in Paris, takes Max Walter Svanberg to his heart. Svanberg reveals an inner scene in which the transformation of realism stands in total contrast and confrontation with the conventional and traditional. The dream visions break free from their shackles and are allowed to move in all their freedom. With the help of poetry and beauty, he wants to tell about the expanded world that exists within man, about his emotional life, sexuality and drive.

By his side from the 1930s until a couple of years before his death is his wife Gunni. They marry in 1940. Help and comfort are offered in a complicated world; he is denied admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in 1931, contracted polio in 1934. “My arms are paralyzed, so when as on my right hand and forearm...,” he writes in a letter to the artist Otte Sköld in 1935.

Surrealism challenges. It is violent and grotesque and wants to shock the viewer. Svanberg uses surrealism and wants to create a meeting between the viewer and the works, which influences and gives opportunities for experiences of a new reality.

The direct shock, the goal of surrealism, is Svanberg's during the 1930s and early 1940s, but with fellow artists such as CO Hultén, Anders Österlin and Gösta Kriland, Svanberg moves towards imaginism. From the French words image (image) and imagination (imagination) the concept of imaginism is created.

In the late 1940s, Svanberg writes a long text — a “declaration” — about how he views the concept of imaginism. A few snipped lines from the long text can hopefully clarify.

“Imaginism cannot be confined to the general term surrealism, and it is not surrealism that is the real origin of imaginism, but instead it is the personal kinship with all visionary-obsessed art... to be able to create from one's own imagination the rich world of surprise without denial... the direct shock effect, which is surrealism's chief weapon, I no longer believe in... Imaginism awakens through the involvement of the mind of beauty in the imagination of the viewer... Art has gained the ability to actively intervene with its multi-intelligible and progressive essence of surprise and unleash the viewer's imagination.”

Malmö Art Museum's collection of works by Max Walter Svanberg has been built up through generous donations from the artist and the Max Walter Svanberg Society as well as additional purchase grants from the City of Malmö. It is 100 years since the artist was born, which gives reason to present Svanberg's artistry in its entirety. It is with great pleasure that Malmö Art Museum presents, through a fruitful collaboration with Vandalorum, a representative selection of Max Walter Svanberg's art. Visitors to the Vandalorum are given the opportunity to get acquainted with one of the foremost representatives of 20th century Swedish art.

The exhibition is produced by Malmö Art Museum in collaboration with Vandalorum.