Mirinda was almost in tears today as she looked at the artworks in the Thiel Gallery. Previously, with her old vision, paintings had been lovely, but now, with her new, improved eye, they have taken on a new glow; a new brightness. She was dazzled by the beauty on display. She is now vowing to revisit every art gallery we’ve ever been to. I’m very much looking forward to our next visit to Florence.
I visited the Thiel back in February 2023 when the road to the gallery was paved in ice. It was icy, slippy and scary but well worth the risk to life and limb. Mostly limb, to be fair.
Then, in the recent, second series of Barracuda Queens, Amina was working at the Thiel Gallery, enticing me to return and Mirinda to see it for the first time. And we went today.
Very potted history
Ernest Thiel was an extraordinary fellow. Born in 1859, he married, then divorced, then married again. He and his wives had a fair slew of kids that may or may not have been his. He became filthy rich, then lost almost all of his money in the Swedish deflation crisis of 1921. He had a gallery designed to house his amazing art collection. The Swedish government bought the gallery and contents. Ernest, eventually, died in 1947.
The Thiels had many very good friends among the artistic cognoscenti, including Carl and Karin Larsson, Stina and Tor Hedberg, and, of course, his chess playing friend, Hjalmar Söderberg.
And Ernest didn’t just make lots of money and buy lots of art, he also wrote poetry and, spent a lot of time translating philosopher Friedrich Neitzche‘s works from German to Swedish. He loved Neitzche’s work so much, he worked on his archive and donated money to the cause. The Nietzsche family were so enamoured of Thiel that they sent him one of the death masks they made of the philosopher when he died.
The gallery itself was designed by architect Frederick Boberg who suggested that Ernest have it built to house his growing collection, which was far bigger than the flat he lived in. Fred designed many notable buildings during his career, including the Post Office Building I briefly mentioned the other day.
His idea was to design the building as if it was “An oriental dressed in white.” I’m not sure about the ethnicity, but the white is certainly pretty dominant.
All of that aside, we spent a goodly amount of time admiring the works spread out and around the gallery. I was disappointed that my previous favourite piece had been moved. Maybe it was on loan or being repaired or been stolen by Amina and her girlfriends. Though, to be fair, there were lots of new works to choose from.
Currently, there are two exhibitions at the Thiel gallery. Together, which features works by artists who worked together and Life and people: Döderhultarn which features the works of Axel Petersson (1868–1925). Both exhibitions were excellent.
Axel’s little wooden works are superb. Looking unfinished, they represent real life in a series of every day scenes, like a funeral, wedding, a game of chess. I really liked his works. I especially liked the fact that he based his little figurines on real people from the town where he lived.
My apologies for the reflections from the glass case.
This visit, I managed to get up to the tower (last time it was too crowded) to see a load of works by Zorn, Munch and Nietzsche’s death mask. It was in the tower that I found my favourite work this visit.
It was painted by Ivar Arosenius (1878-1909). Actually, I quite liked all of his works, particularly the confused troll that wandered into a village, to the surprise of the locals.
The painting I really loved, though, was this one:
Look at the faces of the god fearing, holier than thou, Christians then see the look of fear on the face of the poor, defenceless and grossly outnumbered demon.
But enough art! Suffice it to say that Mirinda was blown away by all the beauty.
We took a couple of buses to get there then another couple going in the opposite direction, back to the flat. It was a most satisfying day.
Of course, dinner was taken at our seventh international restaurant. We were originally planning to eat Swedish at Meatballs for the People, a favourite of ours but, because we went down the wrong street, we discovered a Lebanese eatery. It was obviously a sign.
I also coined the term Cuisine Curious to acknowledge our food fascination.
So, our list now stands at Spanish, Peruvian, French, Italian, Thai, Greek and Lebanese.
Interestingly, as we sat in the restaurant tucking into the million small dishes of the tasting menu, a couple of young Australian women came and sat at the next table. It turns out that one of them, who is getting married on Saturday, is having problems with her visa. Mirinda, going all lawyer, offered lots of advice and made the woman feel a whole lot better.
Vaguely a spoiler alert
To finish, we had a bit of fun with the young woman in the Thiel Gallery gift shop. I asked her if she’d been working when the filming for Barracuda Queens was on. She said yes and it was great fun. We then said that the Zorn that was stolen had still not been re-hung. She said it was probably hanging in some wealthy person’s house in the south of France.
