Marie-Louise Ekman

Marie-Louise Ekman (née Fuchs and known, during her first and second marriages, under the surnames De Geer and De Geer Bergenstråhle) is, amongst many other things, a legendary Swedish artist, director, playwright, author and senior civil servant. In her, seemingly playful, works Ekman alternates between art, film and theatre, allowing one to inform the other. Utilizing a variety of materials: oil on canvas, gouache on silk, textiles, needle and thread, recycled objects, toys and glass, she exposes the absurdity of everyday life, thus undermining social constructions, whilst focusing on themes like gender, equality, intimacy and introspection.

During her, extraordinary, career, Ekman has served as professor of painting at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, 1984 – 1991 (the institute’s first female professor, and the first woman to be on the regular teaching staff), vice-chancellor of the same honorable institution, 1999 – 2008 (the first woman to hold that position), as well as Managing (and Artistic) Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm (2009 – 2014), a mission she took on as an artistic project, causing controversy by focusing on workplace relations and psychology.

Weirdly enough, considering her prestigious jobs, Ekman is basically a self-taught artist. Between the age of eleven and thirteen she studied life drawing, at Stockholm’s Konstskola, in the mid-1950s. This was followed by (aborted) studies at the Åke Pernby School of Painting. The ensuing advertising studies (at Anders Beckman’s college in Stockholm, 1962- 1963) also ended abruptly when Ekman, due to poor results, was expelled. She was, however, later allowed to transfer to the illustration course at the same school.

For almost six decades (starting with her scandalous debut exhibition at Galleri Karlsson, Stockholm in 1967) she has been a prominent presence on the Swedish art scene, and is now one of Scandinavia’s most recognized, and admired, contemporary artists. In 1981, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (one of the oldest, and certainly most prestigious, art museums in the world) commissioned Ekman to paint a self-portrait for its portrait gallery. In 1991, at the 26th Guldbagge Awards, she won the Creative Achievement award, and the following year she designed four postage stamps for the Swedish postal service. Between 1993 and 1996 she served as a board member of the Swedish Arts Council and chairman of KLYS, the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary Professionals. Roughly a decade later, in 2007, she was awarded the prestigious Prince Eugen Medal by H.M. the King (followed up by, the even more prestigious, H.M. The King’s Medal, 12th size, in 2014), and in 2017 Moderna Museet in Stockholm presented the largest solo exhibition, so far, by Ekman, with up to 350 different works covering the fields of painting, sculpture and film etc. Ekman’s work is also represented in prestigious public collections like Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg, Sweden; Norrköping Museum of Art, Norrköping, Sweden and Kalmar Konstmuseum, Kalmar, Sweden as well as several prominent private collections.

Ekman has, in a non-conformist way, explored various disciplines, genres and techniques. In addition to painting, she has also worked with sculpture (including textiles and glass), assemblage (doll’s house interiors), scenography, prints, posters and cartoons (she was, for example, one of the artists working with legendary Swedish underground magazine PUSS, 1968 - 1974). Recurring themes are everyday life situations, relationships, sexuality, identity, dreams versus reality, and popular culture. Ekman’s highly personalized take on these themes has often stirred up emotions and caused controversy. In 1973, for example, the left-wing bookstore Oktober denounced Ekman’s art and stopped selling her posters, including the iconic On the Toilet (1969, serigraph on paper, 100 x 70 cm, made in collaboration with her then husband Carl Johan De Geer [born 1938, artist, author and musician married to Ekman 1966 - 1971]), stating that her posters condoned bourgeoisie mass culture by not taking a clear political stand, and that they portrayed women as passive, unaware, and preoccupied with sexual fantasies. 

Wildly eclectic, Ekman mixes references from art history with comics and everyday life, not infrequently with weird and bizarre results. Surface and line are central to her style, and pink is a dominating colour (she describes pink as ‘the colour of meat, man’s true colour under the skin’). For her solo exhibition at Galerie Bonnier, Geneva, Switzerland (1974) she created Playmate (1973), a book in pink satin and faux fur with a female pudendum inside. The following year, during Basel art fair, she also designed an exhibition space in pink satin (with paintings of shadow ladies drawing, as well as encounters between children, adults and animals inside opened sardine tins).

Ekman’s painterly production is defined by certain characteristics. A carefree, and daring, sense of ‘to hell with it all’ often permeates her work, as well as a liberating sense of humour. Some of her most iconic works from the 1970s, like Life and Death (1971, oil on canvas, 124 x 137 cm, private collection) and Striptease (1973, oil on canvas, 63 x 90 cm, private collection), both previously in the collection of Dagny and Jan Runnqvist, Geneva, are loosely based on the traditional comic book strip format. These paintings illustrate the artist’s characteristic way of portraying human relationships, where sexual taboos and personal neuroses cause cracks to appear in the idyllic façade of the nuclear family.

During the 1970s Ekman also explored the delicate technique of painting in gouache on silk, in celebrated works like TheParty II (1976, gouache on silk, 85 x 123.5 cm, MOMB 5), which was acquired by Moderna Museet during Ekman’s solo exhibition at Galleri Heland, Stockholm. Other techniques (nowadays seen as typical of Ekman) were also on display at Galleri Heland: several small dinner paintings with miniature people in the food, bell jars with tiny figures in various scenes (Fly Sofa [1976], The Sunbathers [1976], The Crime [1976]), and acrylic glass boxes with so-called everyday situations. It was also during this decade that Ekman began displaying her paintings in recycled old picture frames with a fresh coat of off-white (Milky Yellow) paint (even if they would also come in a variety of hues, such as Pistachio Green and, Ekman’s beloved, Skin Pink).

The painted frames were, once again, used in the, legendary, solo exhibition (Galerie Aronowitsch, Stockholm, 1980) showing her, nowadays iconic, paintings where all the scenes were set in rooms that depict Olle Bærtling (1911 – 1981, Swedish abstract painter and sculptor) paintings, mixed with images culled from Salvador Dalí (1904 – 1989), Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973), Walt Disney (1901 – 1966) and J. J. Grandville (1803 – 1847). Ekman’s fascination for Bærtling would reappear in the exhibition Monument, 1981 at Bohman-Knäpper Gallery, Stockholm (2018) and the lithographic portfolio Monument 1981 – 2021. After having (voluntarily) resigned as managing director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2014, Ekman embarked on a new period of studio painting, revisiting old motifs with her grandchildren Johan and Rebecka as her muses (some of the results were included in the retrospective at Moderna Museet, Stockholm in 2017), in paintings like Bird Child Painting and Striptease (2015, oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm).

Starting in the 1970s Ekman has, repeatedly, explored the possibilities of mass media (in the form of radio, TV and films). Together with Britt Edwall (born 1935, Swedish radio host, author and translator) she co-authored the radio drama Två flickor i Paris (Two Girls in Paris) and the programme Äckliga saker (Repulsive Things) in 1971 and 1972. She then wrote and directed films like the autobiographical Hallo Baby (1976), in which she also played the leading character. This was followed by, the wryly humorous kitchen sink drama, Mamma pappa barn (Mother Father Child) the following year. Other movies, written and directed by Ekman, include Barnförbjudet (The Elephant Walk), 1979 (the uncensored narrative from a child’s perspective, about the everyday life of a girl at nursery school and at home with her parents and grandmother, considered provocative and wild by the press, won a Chaplin award).

The 1980s and 1990s meant further exploration of radio and television, as well as feature films. Ekman wrote and directed the radio drama Den falska människan (The False Human), starring Swedish actors Georg Rydeberg (1907 – 1983) and Sune Mangs (1932 – 1994), in 1981. This was followed by Den falska människan del II eller Den skrattande bögen (The False Human Part II or The Laughing Queer) in 1982 and Den falska människan del III (The False Human Part III) in 1983. The latter won the Nordic Radio Prize, for best new radio drama, in 1985. The jury stated that it delivered “a penetrating portrait of an aging artist’s struggle with existential anxiety and loneliness”.

With Gösta Ekman (1939 – 2017, Swedish actor, comedian and director, Marie-Louise’s husband 1989 - 2017) she wrote and directed several productions for Swedish Television, as well as films, including Duo jag (You and Me) in 1991, Vennerman & Winge in 1992 and Nu är pappa trött igen (Dad is Tired Again) in 1996. She also, together with her husband, wrote and directed the play I fru Vennermans fall (In Mrs Vennerman’s Case), 1993, for Teater Kilen at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. Teater Kilen was also where Gösta Ekman later performed God natt herr Morris (Good Night, Mr Morris), written by Marie-Louise (and dedicated to Gösta) in 1998, before it went on tour in Sweden for a year.

During the years prior to, during and after her tenure as Managing Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Ekman wrote a trilogy for the Royal Dramatic Theatre comprising the plays Gäckanden (The Mocking, co-directed with her husband Gösta), 2007; Dödspatrullen (Death Squad, with direction, scenography and costume by herself), 2014 and Försökskaninerna (The Guinea Pigs, with direction, scenography and costume by herself), 2017, dealing with her mother’s (played by Swedish actress Marie Göranzon, born 1942) aging.

Related to the theatrical field is also Ekman’s collaboration with Mats Ek (born 1945, Swedish choreographer and dancer, manager of the Cullberg Ballet from 1985 to 1993), designing sets and costumes for productions including Cain and Abel(the Royal Opera in Stockholm, 1982 and the Opera in Helsinki, 1983); Like Antigone (the Stuttgarter Ballett in Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany, 1988); Over There (Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague, 1990); Giselle (Opéra national de Paris, 1993, Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich, Germany, 1996 and La Scala in Milan, Italy, 1997); Carmen (Teatr Wielki–Opera Narodowa in Warsaw, 1994 and the National Theatre in Prague, 2008) and Bernarda’s House (Opéra national de Paris, 2008).

As an author Ekman has written and illustrated the children’s book Sagan om den ensamma damen (The Tale of the Lonely Lady) for Rabén & Sjögren publishers (1977). More recent titles include “Få se om hundarna är snälla ikväll…”(2018) and “Jag tror jag går in i hans rum och öppnar en väska till” (2023) on Piratförlaget.

Seemingly indefatigable and unstoppable (‘Giving up is not a concept for me. I think I’ve never given up since I became an adult’ Marie-Louise Ekman was quoted saying in the literary magazine 00-tal, 1999), Ekman’s dedication and work ethic has shown little, or no, sign of diminishing in the 21st century. In the autumn of 2023, she turned one of the classrooms at the Stockholm School of Economics into an art installation, Testamentet (The Testament) - containing parts of the artist’s own studio, as well as several new original works. At the time of writing, autumn 2024, Ekman continues to explore new techniques in her production. This time by finding new ways of utilizing acrylic glass in her installation for Danderyd hospital in the north of Stockholm.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation