Martina Müntzing

Considered a rising star already during her early years at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Martina Müntzing’s career has, in a most impressive manner, gone from strength to strength in recent decades. Her works are executed in a realistic painterly tradition (tracing its roots back to the early modern period) where, seemingly, everyday motifs (when scrutinized up-close) often turn out to have an existential undertone. Susanna Slöör (born 1962, Swedish painter, art critic and curator, permanent secretary of The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Sweden between 2010 and 2017) writes (in her review of Müntzing’s exhibition I gemenskap och tystnad at CFHILL, Stockholm, 2 December 2020 – 9 January 2021):

What is particularly prominent in Martina Müntzing’s painting is the poetic touch, the very act of fading out and reinforcing, highlighting and isolating what is important. This creates an enhanced oscillation between image and imagination. Events that have already occurred live side by side with what is happening and the anxiety or expectation that rests in what is to come.

Martina Müntzing was born in the southern town of Helsingborg in 1968. She studied art at Munka folk high school in Munka-Ljungby, in the south of Sweden, between 1988 and 1990. After this she applied to the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm as well as the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Gaining entry to one of these prestigious institutions is no mean feat. Müntzing was accepted at both! Having chosen the Royal Institute of Art, however, she then spent the following six years studying in Stockholm before receiving her MFA in Painting in 1996.

After graduation Müntzing spent a few years abroad, studying and working, together with her husband Lars Arrhenius (1966 – 2020, Swedish artist who studied at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm and Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. Arrhenius, who sadly passed away much too early in 2020, is represented, among others, in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg, Sweden; Malmö Museum of Art, Malmö, Sweden; Uppsala Museum of Art, Uppsala, Sweden; Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. One of his most important public works was inaugurated at Thorildsplan metro station, Stockholm in 2008) in Amsterdam and London, where Müntzing spent countless hours and days at the Rijksmuseum and Tate Britain (Müntzing had already, in her late teens, lived in London, during which time she paid her first visits to Tate Britain and fell in love with the paintings by Meredith Frampton [1894 – 1984], celebrated portrait painter whose work met with great acclaim in the 1920s – 1940s).

Müntzing, herself a much sought after portraitist, has carried out several acclaimed official portraits depicting, for example, Per Westerberg, Speaker of the Swedish Parliament (2009); Wanja Lundby-Wedin, Chairman of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (2013); Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland with family (2020/2023) and author and member of the Swedish Academy Anna-Karin Palm (2024).

Müntzing’s exploration of this artistic genre can be traced all the way back to her years at the Royal Institute of Art, from which time dates her extraordinarily bold and brave self-portrait Den röda / The Red (1994, oil on canvas, 200 x 209 cm, Helsingborg Art Museum / Dunker’s Cultural Centre, Helsingborg, Sweden) which not only adorned the catalogue cover of the exhibition Alone Together at Liljevalchs Public Art Gallery (1996), but also was chosen to illustrate the invitation cards as well as posters hanging all over Stockholm.

To name but a few of the group exhibitions that have included paintings by Müntzing one could mention Invasion(Millesgården, Stockholm, 1994), Alone together (Liljevalchs Public Art Gallery, Stockholm, 1996), Farewell welfare(W139, Amsterdam, 1997), Dangelberry (Rozengracht 207c, Amsterdam, 1998), Swenglish (IASPIS-studio, London, 2001), Blir du lonesome, lilla vän (Konstnärshuset, Stockholm, 2002), Ur samlingarna (Norrköping Museum of Art, Norrköping, Sweden, 2004), IKEA Art Event (2006), Självporträtt (Gerlesborgs konsthall, Gerlesborg, Sweden, 2010), Carl Larsson & Co (Dunker’s Cultural Center, Helsingborg, Sweden, 2011), Konvention och attityd (The Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm, 2014); Uppsamling (Uppsala Museum of Art, Uppsala, Sweden, 2014); Painting failures (Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö, Sweden, 2016); Portrait Now (Carlsberg Foundation Fredriksbord Castle, Hilleröd, Denmark, 2019); Jag är (Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2019); Skogspromenad (CFHILL, Stockholm, 2021) and Upclose (CFHILL, Stockholm, 2021). 

Her work has also been met with great acclaim in solo exhibitions at Galleri 54, Gothenburg, Sweden (2003); Galleri Olsson, Stockholm (2004); Höganäs Museum, Höganäs, Sweden (2009); Galleri Gunnar Olsson, Stockholm (2009) and Eskilstuna Art Museum, Eskilstuna, Sweden (2010).

More recent solo exhibitions include Jag tänker på det imorgon (Galleri Olsson, Stockholm, 2014); I gemenskap och tystnad (CFHILL, Stockholm, 2020 – 2021); M. Müntzing, (CFHILL, Stockholm, 2022 – 2023) and CHART Art Fair, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 2024.

Important works by Müntzing have been acquired by prestigious public collections like Moderna Museet, Stockholm (Jag tänker på det i morgon / I Will Think About it Tomorrow, 2013 – 2014, oil on canvas, 200 x 230 cm and Sista snön / The Last Snow, 2020, oil and pencil on canvas, 206 x 230 cm); Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg, Sweden (Farväl till en utsikt / A Farewell to a View, 2019, oil on canvas, 206 x 271.5 cm, paraphrasing Richard Bergh’s [1858 - 1919] iconic nationalist romantic composition Nordisk sommarkväll / Nordic Summer Evening, 1899 – 1900, oil on canvas, 170 x 223.5 cm, also in the collections of Gothenburg Museum of Art) and Helsingborg Museum of Art / Dunker’s Cultural Center, Helsingborg, Sweden (Ambassadörerna, efter Hans Holbein / The Ambassadors, after Hans Holbein, 1998, oil on canvas, 205 x 209 cm).

She is also represented in the collections of, among others, the Royal Court, Sweden; the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm; the Swedish Parliament; the Public Art Agency Sweden; Stockholm University and Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, as well as several distinguished private collections such as Ståhl Collection, Norrköping, Sweden.

Martina Müntzing currently lives and works in Stockholm and is represented by CFHILL.