Professor Emerita
M.F.A., Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Our dear friend and colleague, Dr. Mary Swanson passed away on September 11, 2004. The UST News Service sent out this notice
This page makes available for reading Professor Swanson's manuscript on Swedish Immigrant artists. Below is a list of chapters and their summaries. Please click on the chapter title to download a .pdf file of that chapter. Illustrations for the manuscript will be made available soon; please check for an update on their status on this page.
A Tangled Web: Swedish Immigrant Artists Patronage Systems, 1880-1940
By Mary Towley Swanson, PhD
Mary Towley Swanson, 2004
Annotated Table of Contents
1: Overview: Towards a Definition of Swedish-American Artistic Patronagen Patronage (PDF)
Patronage demands a broad definition within the scope of nineteenth and early twentieth century American art. Seldom studied as a component in the careers of immigrant artists because of the difficulties in discovering sources and the absence of affluent donors, histories of ethnic artists generally omit this influential factor in the history of American art. The Swedish immigrant community, however, possessed diverse cultural groups who both supported and initiated exhibitions and publicity that introduced their artists into at least side currents of the American cultural mainstream. Rather than narrating individual stories about Swedish-American artists, this text examines the careers and lives of these artists within the context of a complex patronage system that operated most effectively between 1880 and 1940, primarily in Midwestern and East Coast areas. Seen through the lens of Swedish-immigrant artists, the text offers a more expansive definition of American art patronage among immigrant ethnic groups. The visual arts were often the last element of a culture to gain support from their hyphenated-American communities. Swedish-Americans appear to be an exception. Gleaned from artists' archives and libraries in Sweden and America, an examination of this nationality's art history reveals an unusually cohesive group of patrons and artists whose activities symbiotically supported one another.
2: Official Swedish Art Exhibitions in America Lend Support to Ethnic Artists (PDF)
Between 1876 and 1916 Sweden sent seven officially-sanctioned exhibitions featuring its most contemporary Swedish art to tour American museums and galleries, giving encouragement to its immigrant communities and a sense of pride in the cultural attainment of the country they'd left. The exhibitions traveled to 25 cities in a 40 year period, providing numerous opportunities for both the general public and artists to view the advanced art of Swedish painters and sculptors. Because they were favorably received by art critics and the public, these exhibitions accelerated the acceptance of Swedish and Swedish immigrant artists into their own communities and American cultural life. Arts institutions in Minneapolis and Chicago, for example, founded committees to organize special Scandinavian art collections for their arts institutions, and the language American critics used to describe ethnic characteristics in Swedish art transferred to descriptions of the art and life of Swedish-American artists in both ethnic and mainstream American publications.
3: Early Immigrant Artists Create a Template for Success (PDF)
At the turn of the twentieth century, Swedish-Americans reached back into their ethnic history to retrieve the stories of three immigrant artists whose stories would emphasize to an American public, suspicious of immigrants, that Swedish-Americans had been a successful part of the American cultural fabric since colonial times. In periodicals published from 1904 to 1916, Swedish-American writers highlighted the careers of painters Gustaf Hesselius (1682-1755), Adolf Wertmealler (1751-1811), and Lars Gustaf Sellstedt (1818-1911). Hesselius, in fact, was not rediscovered by American art historians until 1897. The artists' lives, as crafted in the articles, mirrored the ongoing assimilation process of immigrant painters and sculptors who arrived in America between 1880 and 1920. In tandem with and as a supplement to the series of successfully received art exhibitions from Sweden that toured to American galleries and museums between 1887 and 1916, these stories of the three early artists eased the acceptance of Swedish immigrant artists into American cultural life. In fact the first article on Hesselius in 1904 coincided with the critical success of the Swedish art section at the St. Louis World's Exposition, while the dates of an article on Sellstedt (1913) and another on both Hesselius and Wertmealler (1915) paralleled the well-received Scandinavian Art Exhibition of 1912-1913 and the touring exhibition of Swedish art (1916) that evolved from the Swedish section of the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915.
4: Ethnic Periodicals Help Artists Sustain Careers (PDF)
Religious and secular annuals and periodicals published for Swedish- and Scandinavian-American audiences proved effective conduits of information and publicity for Swedish-American artists during peak years of their professional careers between 1900 and 1940, disseminating news on their exhibitions and careers to both an ethnic and American public. Each publication served a different audience within the Swedish- and Scandinavian-American communities, thus assuring a broad reception. Prearieblomman (1900-1913), for example, featured the romantic views of American landscapes by Swedish-American artists, emphasizing the love of the New Land and pride in a developing, hyphenated culture. Ungdomsveannen (1897-1918) borrowed some of the same illustrations from Prearieblomman, since both publications were printed at Augustana Book Concern, but focused on current exhibtions from Sweden and featured a series of articles on individual Swedish-American artists. Hemeat (1892-1957), and Aurora (1900-1934), both published by the Swedish Mission Covenant denomination and Vinter Rosor (1903-1931), by the Swedish Methodists, occasionally exchanged commercial reproductions of the work of renaissance masters and Swedish illustrators. In contrast, The Covenant Companion (1924-1933), used original illustrations by Swedish-American artists for at least one-third of its covers. Swedish Baptist and Swedish Free Church denominations, however, used only text for their annual publications, usually a yearbook or proceeds of the denomination's annual meeting. Of the secular periodicals, Valkyrian (1897-1909), primarily displayed pirated illustrations from Swedish publications, spotlighting few contemporary Swedish-American artists. In comparison, The American-Scandinavian Review (1913--) and The American Swedish Monthly (1907-1934, 34--) were consistent advocates for Swedish- and Scandinavian-American artists, focusing a majority of articles on the visual arts about Swedish-American or Swedish artists. These publications not only informed their readers about the rich visual arts culture within their society, but subtly defined stylistic characteristics in the art that revealed a divided loyalty to both Swedish and American content.
5: Exhibitions Create a Catalyst for Artists' Ethnic Sustainability and Support (PDF)
Geographical and cultural factors fostered the careers of Swedish-American artists in urban centers, particularly in the Midwest and East Coast. Chicago became a fulcrum for the organization of ethnic exhibitions, drawing entrants not only from the area, but also nationally. Between 1905 and 1964, with the help of ethnic publications, Swedish-American artists and business leaders established a successful series of 34 exhibitions that introduced these artists to the American public and their own ethnic communities throughout the Midwest and the East Coast. Through 1929, the exhibitions drew participants almost equally from Midwest and East Coast artists, a period when the quality of the work in the exhibitions was at its height. The exhibitions, the longest sustaining art exhibitions by an ethnic group in America, inspired Norwegian-American artists to organize their own exhibitions by 1920, Italian-Americans to show work as a group in 1926, and Scandinavian-American artists to form an artists' organization that exhibited in East Coast venues from 1926-1936. Swedish-American exhibitions' high points were 1920 and 1923, when works chosen from the Midwestern artists in the Chicago exhibitions and East Coast artists toured museums in Sweden, prompting mixed reviews in Swedish and more favorable ones in American papers. Although placing them within a prescribed ethnic niche, exhibitors benefited from a mode of patronage that brought their prints, paintings, and sculpture to the attention of their Swedish-American audience and a broader American constituency.
6: Diverse American Systems of Patronage Provide Broad Support (PDF)
A diverse but informal network of psychological and monetary support for Swedish-American artists and Swedish-American art exhibitions existed and was nurtured within this group's ethnic communities and cultural organizations during the period between 1880 and 1945. This network consisted of pastors and lay leaders within the Augustana Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, particularly in the Midwest; urban area businessmen, museum and gallery personnel in the Midwest and the East Coast, a number of whom were not Swedish-Americans; the art exhibition programs originating in the 1930s at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis and the Swedish American Historical Museum in Philadelphia; and the initiatives of Swedish-American artists themselves. A number of collectors, both Swedish-American and from other ethnic backgrounds, focused exclusively on this group of artists, providing a solid foundation for future museum and gallery collections in America and Sweden. Non-Swedish-Americans encouraged the artists by publicizing works in articles and exhibition catalogs, while the Swedish-American clergy either helped to promote the artists or purchased works themselves, seeing the purchase as a symbol of support for Swedish-American cultural life. Whatever the rationale, Swedish immigrant artists benefited from the support of a variety of constituencies, an unusual but positive patronage network for early to mid-twentieth century Americans.
7: Swedish Patronage Networks Encourage Artists Careers and Ethnic Collections (PDF)
Unlike any other Nordic country, Sweden maintained an almost maternal relationship to its immigrant artists during the period of heaviest immigration to America, 1880-1920. The latter decades through the early 1940s were the period when Swedish-American immigrant artists matured to focus on their careers after acclimatization to their adopted country. Swedish cultural leaders inferred that their immigrant artists were still part of an extended national family through the collections of Swedish-American art maintained by two Swedish museums and by their inclusion in Swedish encyclopediae, as well as news items and feature stories in Swedish newspapers and in the newsletters published by organizations dedicated to Swedes living abroad. The clippings scrapbooks collected by journalist Otto Robert Landelius through 1945 and bequeathed to the Emigrant Institute, Veaxjea, Sweden in 1977, helped to inform the Swedish public about artists who had achieved successful careers in America. By achieving publicity in Sweden, the emigrant artists realized a measure of support in both countries. They had left the Old Country to forge their niche in a new nation's art world, yet their friends and family back in Sweden were kept apprised of their triumphs in America.
Appendix A: Art Exhibitions at the American Swedish Institute (PDF)
Chronological list of 390 art exhibitions held at the American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, 1930-2000.
Appendix B: Art Exhibitions at the American Swedish Historical Museum (PDF)
Chronological list of 160 art exhibitions held at the American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia, 1930-2000.
Appendix C: Swedish American Artists Index (Biographies of Swedish-American artists) (PDF)
This section summarizes the careers of approximately 100 Swedish-American artists working between 1712 and 1945, noting interrelationships among them, among patrons, and cultural organizations in paragraph-long biographies. Compiled from archives and records in both Sweden and America, it presents a picture of the artists' lives as viewed from both countries.
