Mamma Andersson: Dog Days

The widely admired Swedish artist Mamma Andersson (born 1962) draws on a long and venerable tradition of northern European art for her painting, in particular that of Romantic landscape painting, whose moody horizons and ominous weather so acutely characterize her modest-seeming scenes. Of course, Andersson is equally apt to draw on photographs of forensics investigations or scenes from theatre programs, shifting fluidly from the heavy gravity of outdoor scenes to the meticulous detail of equally ominous interiors. This volume, published for an exhibition at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, contextualizes Andersson’s painting in relation to the works of painters such as Dürer, Dick Bengtsson, Edvard Munch and Caspar David Friedrich, showing how she has likewise extrapolated larger meditations on the human condition from the genres of landscape and interior painting.