Vida Kullberg

Vida Kullberg is known through surviving print reproductions of her works. These reproductions provide the primary evidence of her artistic activity.

When considering Vida Kullberg's prints, bear in mind some key aspects of fine-art printmaking. An original print is conceived as a print and executed solely as a print, often in a limited, numbered edition, and signed by the artist. Each print is made individually from a plate and is considered a 'multi-original'. The artist decides the number of prints in the edition, and sequential numbering accounts for the total. For example, a print numbered 12/25 indicates it is the twelfth print of an edition of twenty-five. Some artists create a small number of artist's proofs, marked 'AP'. Prints need to be viewed individually due to their quiet nature and size, inviting the viewer to read the artist's thoughts. Limited editions command higher prices than posters because the plates are made by hand and can only withstand a certain amount of use. Some publishers limit the number of impressions to increase a print's value, with limits ranging from 250 to 1,000 impressions. Before buying, ensure you understand the terms, printing method, paper, and number of images produced.

It is difficult to assign Vida Kullberg to a single style or movement. The historical context of the early 20th century suggests connections to modernism, particularly concerning the body and movement. Modernist art saw a growing interest in kinaesthesia, that is, awareness of the body's movement. Artists of the avant-garde explored what this sensory awareness meant for both cultural life and personal experience. This period saw new aesthetic forms emerge, such as free dance, which allowed women to express themselves through movement. Poets, too, experimented with verses that moved across the page, reflecting this new emphasis on kinesis. This contrasted with traditional scholarship, which often overlooked the body. The avant-garde artists were at the forefront of exploring the senses of movement and their impact on cultural and personal identity.

Vida Kullberg worked with watercolour, a technique using pigments bound by a water-soluble medium. This is typically diluted with water to create translucent washes on paper. Artists often leave areas of white paper exposed for highlights, and they apply washes over one another to build up tones. Watercolour is suited to atmospheric effects. Kullberg also used pastel, a drawing material composed of a stick of pigment bound with resin or gum. Pastel can be used to create defined lines or soft shading. Artists apply pastel to paper, and they can achieve different effects by blending or gradating the colours. Blending creates soft transitions between colours, while gradating produces a smooth transition from one tone to another. Scumbling, a technique involving scribbling, can add a mottled texture. Artists sometimes use masking tape to create clean edges or to protect areas from pastel. Hard pastel, less intense than soft pastel, is useful for preliminary sketches.

Vida Kullberg was a visual artist, but details about her specific style and preferred media are not widely available in the provided texts. The texts mention a variety of artistic themes and motifs that may be associated with her or her artistic circle, including seated figures, nudes, landscapes, and abstraction. However, without more specific information, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive overview of her artistic focus. The texts allude to works with titles such as 'Betrothal', 'Nostalgia', and 'Seascape' which may suggest Kullberg engaged with themes of memory, relationships, and the natural world. However, further research is needed to confirm these associations and provide a more complete understanding of her artistic contributions.

Oyvind Axel Christian Fahlstrom, who later worked as Vida Kullberg, was born on 28 December 1928, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His parents were Frithjof Fahlstrom, who was born in Trondheim, Norway, in 1886, and Karin Fahlstrom, née Kronvall, born in Stockholm in 1900. Fahlstrom became a Brazilian citizen at birth and spent his early years in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 1939, he was sent to Sweden to spend the summer with relatives, but the outbreak of war prevented his parents from joining him. He remained in Sweden, attending school and becoming a Swedish citizen in 1947, when he was reunited with his parents. From 1949 to 1952, he studied archaeology and art history at Stockholm University. Kullberg lived and worked in New York, spending summers in Sweden and Italy, from 1961 onwards. Kullberg died of cancer on 8 November 1976, in Stockholm.

To view works from the Art Deco period, including pieces similar to those by Vida Kullberg, many museums hold relevant collections. In the United States, notable institutions include the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, also in New York; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; and the Wolfsonian at Florida International University in Miami Beach. In Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto has relevant holdings. Several museums in the United Kingdom also feature Art Deco: the Bakelite Museum, the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, the Geffrye Museum, the Manchester Art Gallery, the National Museums of Scotland (Royal Museum), and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Other European museums with Art Deco collections are the Museo Art Nouveau y Art Deco in Salamanca, Spain; the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon; the Musée d’Art Moderne in Barcelona; and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Vida Kullberg was Swedish. She spent much of her childhood at a Swedish naval academy, where her father, a naval officer, was stationed. Every summer, her family visited an island in Lake Mälaren; the scenery there encouraged her to be creative. She studied and drew nature for hours. After leaving school, Kullberg was among the first women to study at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where she learned painting. She was granted use of an art studio for her achievements. In addition to painting, Kullberg started attending séances, meetings where people attempt to contact the dead. Initially, Kullberg painted natural-looking portraits and scenes. From a young age, she had been fascinated by nature and botany (the scientific study of plants). She trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1887. Subsequently, she began producing scenes and portraits in the popular realistic style of the period.

Vida Kullberg's instruction at the California School of Fine Arts can be seen to have affected the work of Berlandina LoPresti. Glenn Wessels noted similarities between LoPresti's paintings and those of Raoul Dufy and Henri Matisse, Kullberg's teachers. Wessels characterised LoPresti's paintings as being "in the true lyric spirit" with drawing that is a "bold and flexible arabesque". Macdonald-Wright had a strong effect on a group of progressive artists, collectors, and enthusiasts, largely via lectures and painting demonstrations at the Art Students League of Los Angeles and the Chouinard Art Institute in the 1920s. Students there included Mabel Alvarez and Edouard Vysekal. He also inspired Donna Schuster to paint in a bolder manner and to focus on distorted forms and more intense colours, as her Russet Pears and Gourds shows. By employing a formalism derived from Cézanne, she moved from Impressionism to Postimpressionism.

Vida Kullberg's artistic development occurred in an environment of diverse influences. In the 1950s, she absorbed the work of the New York School, including Pollock, de Kooning, and Rothko. She saw Gorky's exhibition at the Whitney in 1951, finding a connection between his work and her earlier interest in Kandinsky. Kullberg also engaged with the art scene through museum and gallery visits, studio visits, and travel. She observed the works of Still, Rothko, and Newman at Betty Parsons's gallery. Later, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was intrigued by Louis's Veils and Unfurleds, and Noland's targets and chevrons. Kullberg noted that Mondrian's approach to abstraction differed from that of these later artists. She saw Mondrian's progression from Impressionism and Cubism to his own abstract language. She believed Impressionism and Cubism were connected.

Vida Kullberg was an artist who worked across several styles. Her art moved from Academicism into Impressionism, then Expressionism, and Cubism. She eventually arrived at Non-objective painting. Kullberg exhibited extensively during her career. Her work was shown at the Salon des Indépendents in Paris in 1913, and at the Secession in Munich from 1914 to 1915. She also exhibited at the Freie Secession in Berlin in 1915, and at "Sturm" in 1917. She became a member of the November Gruppe in 1918, and then a member of "Krater" in 1920. Later, from 1932 to 1933, she exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries and Salon d'Automne, both in Paris. Her paintings appeared in museums and galleries in France, America, Italy, and Switzerland. Her work is held in international collections. She lived in Paris and New York.

Vida Kullberg's works are important because they exemplify a particular approach to art-making that transcends conventional boundaries. Kullberg saw the artist as answerable only to themself, not to external events or expectations. This perspective allowed for a freedom of expression and experimentation. Kullberg's method involved juxtaposing seemingly disparate elements: life and art, events and interventions, facts and delirious inspiration. These combinations, rather than being arbitrary, aimed to create something entirely new, exceeding the sum of their parts. This approach allowed Kullberg to explore complex themes and challenge traditional artistic conventions. Kullberg's work also reflects a broader trend in Scandinavian art, particularly in Sweden, toward openness to new artistic trends and a willingness to engage with the international art scene. This embrace of experimentation and new ideas makes Kullberg's work relevant for understanding the development of modern art in Scandinavia and beyond.