Kalkstensklippan [The Limestone cliff]

In 1921, Sigrid Hjertén painted the dramatic coast at Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, in Normandy, for the first time. The year before, the Hjertén/Grünewald family had returned to the French capital after almost ten years in Sweden. During the 1920s, Hjertén increasingly travelled outside Paris, partly to get away from the noise of the city but also to be inspired by life and nature in small coastal settlements.

The Grünewald family spent the summer of 1921 in Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer on the English Channel with their Parisian friends Jules Pascin (1885 - 1930, also known as the ‘Prince of Montparnasse’, Bulgarian painter and member of the group École de Paris) and Hermine David (1886 - 1970, French painter and member of the group École de Paris). They were surrounded by a dramatic Norman landscape, which inspired Hjertén to seek out new motifs. Hjertén was particularly interested in the large cliffs, the falais, hundred-metre-high chalk cliffs that plunge straight into the sea, where an elongated strip of beach is formed at low tide. She would return to motifs from this coastal strip several times in paintings such as Kritklippor i Bretagne (Chalk Cliffs in Brittany) (1933, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm) and Falaiserna (The Falais) (1935, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm).

The dramatic landscape of Normandy had already inspired an older generation of Swedish artists. Carl Fredrik Hill (1849 - 1911) spent a hot August month in 1876 in the small neighbouring town of Luc-sur-Mer, where he repeatedly depicted the dramatic cliffs in, now legendary, paintings such as Mörka moln över falaiserna, Luc-sur-Mer (Dark Clouds over the Falais, Luc-sur-Mer) (oil on canvas, 58 x 72 cm, private collection). Hill’s friend Wilhelm von Gegerfelt (1844 - 1920) had also taken an interest in these cliffs in compositions such as Kritklippor i Normandie (Chalk Cliffs in Normandy) (1878, oil on canvas, 140 x 200 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). Anders Wahlgren (born 1946, Swedish art historian, author, screenwriter and director of documentary and feature films. Recognised for the documentary Sigrid and Isaac, which depicted the artist couple Sigrid Hjertén and Isaac Grünewald) writes about Kalkstensklippan (in Sigrid Hjertén -en av Sveriges främsta konstnärer, 2008):

The dramatic rocky coast of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer with its large cliffs - the falais - is the subject of the painting. A storm is approaching. The hundred-metre-high chalk cliffs plunge straight into the water. At low tide, long beaches form along the coast. Sigrid is captivated by the monumental cliffs and she returns to this motif several times in her life, just like Carl Fredrik Hill, who had painted this coastal strip 50 years earlier. There are features reminiscent of Hill’s expressive paintings. Sigrid discovered this artist and Ernst Josephson’s painting early on. Here she softens the colour and allows the harsh summer light to be reflected in the white rock against a dark sky. A bright horizon contrasts with black sailboats and two small figures collecting mussels by the shore.

As pointed out by Elisabet Haglund (born 1945, Swedish exhibition curator and museum director) in Sigrid Hjertén (1985), the painting marks a new and significant direction in Hjertén’s oeuvre:

Sigrid’s range of subjects was very varied in the 1920s, and when her family settled back in France, her painting changed. [...] A very clear expression of how Sigrid now changed her painting is Kalkklippan, Saint Aubin-sur-Mer, probably painted in 1921. It is a sea view. She later painted the same subject on two occasions, including in 1933. Now, for the first time, Sigrid used strongly marked brushstrokes over the entire surface of the painting. There is a different expressionism in this painting than in her paintings of the 1910s. The wildness of nature emerges through the different directions of the brushstrokes. The sea bends and heaves and the small sailboats strive as if uphill. The sky falls and rises. The whitish limestone cliffs hang like a curtain over the dark, rocky beach. At the water’s edge, some boys go in search of finds. Further away, a couple is walking.

Provenance

Private collection.

Bukowskis, Stockholm, Modern art & design, 16 June 2020, lot 373.

Private collection (acquired from the above sale).

Bukowskis, Stockholm, Modern art & design, 20 November 2024, lot 626.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above sale).

Literature

Elisabet Haglund, Sigrid Hjertén, 1985, mentioned p. 25 (under the title Kalkklippan, Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer [The Limestone cliff, Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer]).

Anders Wahlgren, Sigrid Hjertén – en av Sveriges främsta konstnärer, 2008, mentioned and illustrated full page in colour, p. 120.

Görel Cavalli – Björkman, Kvinna i avantgardet. Sigrid Hjertén- Liv och verk, 2017, mentioned p. 182 and illustrated full page in colour, p. 286 (under the title Kalkstensklippan I St Aubin [The Limestone cliff in St Aubin]).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation