This essay was written by Margareta Tamm. Translated by Fern Scott, 2024.
Just inside the entrance to the lounge stands a stone sculpture in the window. Two blocks, which vertically interlock with each other. The material is diabase, mineralogically formed from the solidification of molten rock material formed in the Earth’s interior. This type of stone appears in various forms in the Swedish bedrock, where diabase veins of various ages are very common. The sculpture expresses a powerful play between material and volume, surface and depth, shadow and light. The interplay between the heavy, compact stone and the minimalistic form of expression is absolute. The two rectangular cubes are united in a three-dimensional (volume) relationship that brings to mind the Belgian artist Georges Vantongerloo’s block sculptures from the 1920s, which, according to the artist, were intended to express and illustrate a harmonic balance, in the same way that balance is the innermost striving of nature. In the diabase sculpture, the meeting between the different forms is charged with tension and the relationships between the geometric blocks are calculated with an almost mathematical precision.
The artist’s name is Wiwen Nilsson, and the work is dated 1957. His real name was Karl Edvin Nilsson, but from early on he preferred the family nickname Wiwen, and it was under this name that he would emerge as an artist and craftsman in the 1920s.
Wiwen Nilsson was part of a lineage of craftsmen who worked with silver. His father started as an apprentice and ended up as purveyor to the royal court, with the family line tracing back to the 1700s. This heritage influenced Wiwen Nilsson's approach to silversmithing as a craft. He was relentless in his commitment to the highest quality of craftsmanship, basing his work on the same methods and techniques that had been used for centuries.
At the age of 15, Wiwen Nilsson left school in Lund and in “knickerbockers and knitted socks” he travelled to Germany to train as a silversmith. At the prestigious Königliche Zeichenakademie in Hanau, he studied freehand drawing for goldsmithing and engraving, as well as hammered work for silversmithing. When the First World War broke out, he, like many other Swedish artists, had to return home. Upon his return, he continued his education in his father's workshop in Lund, but also attended what was then called, "Skole for Brugskunst" in Copenhagen and learned chiseling from a private tutor. In May 1919, he received his journeyman certificate as a chiseler and silversmith, and at the same time, was awarded the prestigious silver medal for his skill in producing the five examination pieces: a vase, a tea strainer with cup, two brooches, and a chiseled border. In the following years, he participated in several major exhibitions.
In 1923, he exhibited his work at the Gothenburg Exhibition, and in 1925, at the Paris Exhibition.
If Wiwen Nilsson can be said to be traditional in terms of craftsmanship, he was far more innovative in terms of his visual language. His bold, clean forms with hard, sharp facets sometimes combined with elegantly unfolded edges belonged to the same spirit as contemporary Bauhaus production, but were completely different from the Art Deco or “Jugend style” (Art Nouveau) of the time. This purist, geometric style was, of course, difficult for traditionalists to appreciate, and there was no shortage of negative criticism: "The work was no more commendable than if it had been done with a simple material," wrote a well-known writer, and the design was perceived as "meaningless cone shapes." But Wiwen Nilsson's progressive approach to renewing the possibilities of the material silver was still appreciated by many. After the Paris exhibition, he received an invitation to exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The exhibition then went on to Chicago, where an art critic praised the objects as representing the: "essential spirit of modernism." Around the same time, the venerable institution Goldsmiths' Hall in London also requested photographic material for documentation. To this day, some eight photos of Wiwen Nilsson's early production are believed to be archived there. By around 1930, Wiwen Nilsson had refined his visual language, building on variations of basic shapes such as the cone, sphere, cylinder, and cube. These were broadly similar to the shapes that Cezanne was urging his students to use in their work at the turn of the century, the theory of art that Cubists would later develop further. Wiwen Nilsson has varied these basic shapes over the decades, and with them, he has created radically new designs, not only in silver but also in gold and pewter.
After the success of the 1925 Paris exhibition, where many Swedes were recognised for their fine design, Sweden planned a collective exhibition of "Sweden's contribution to contemporary efforts to incorporate artistic skills to provide for good quality and aesthetically pleasing housing and household objects”. The exhibition was held in Stockholm in 1930, and marked a breakthrough for functionalism in Sweden. Wiwen Nilsson participated and sold a vase and a tea caddy to Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. This broke the ice and positive reviews followed. Instead of "meaningless cone forms", Wiwen Nilsson was now described as an artist who "took simplicity to its extreme, but also to the heights of refinement". In addition to bowls, candlesticks and coffee sets, he created innovative jewellery, gift items of various kinds, such as desk accessories and boxes with coats of arms in planar relief. His production was extensive: his ecclesiastical silver alone comprised some 677 items, and more than thirty bridal crowns for use in churches in various parts of Sweden have originated from his workshop. He also designed gravestones in a strict, vertical style.
Wiwen Nilsson was one of the leading figures in 20th century silversmithing. But he was also a creative artist. While studying in Hanau, he produced strict non-figurative sketches, which would sometimes bare a resemblance to the Christian act of crucifixion. When he received a scholarship and travelled to Paris in 1924, he continued to do model studies. At the prestigious art school “Académie de la Grande Chaumière”, he studied human anatomy and made life drawings. In addition, he studied sculpture in the studio of the Swedish sculptor Arvid Källström. Here, in 1925, he created a number of plaster statuettes, which, with their elongated, angular forms, are early examples of abstract Swedish sculpture. During his time in Paris, Wiwen Nilsson mingled with many Swedish artists and even lived for a time at the same address as Isaac Grunewald, Erik Olson and Gösta Adrian Nilsson, known as GAN. Fernand Léger had his painting school in the same building, which gave Wiwen Nilsson ample opportunity to study the prevailing art movements firsthand. It is also interesting to compare his sculptures with contemporary works by artists such as Arvid Källström. In a surviving photograph of the interior of Källström's studio, Wiwen Nilsson stands next to his female statuette, whose form is much more advanced than Källström's own works.
Leading up to the Stockholm exhibition in 1930, the artist Otto G. Carlsund organised what he called a "small manifestation of modern art, painting and sculpture". It was in fact a fantastic collection of avant-garde works that he had gathered from friends such as Léger, Ozenfant, Mondrian, Moholy-Nagy and Arp.
"Hope the company appeals to you," Carlsund wrote to Wiwen Nilsson while at the same time asking for his participation. "I have very fond memories of the pieces that you were sculpting in Paris sometime around 1924-25, and it would be very damn kind of you if you would contribute some of those small, finely balanced sculptures - the kind we have far too few of." Wiwen Nilsson participated with a work in plaster titled "The Moon Over Paris" from 1925. It was a small abstract-cubist sculpture, consisting of a faceted, vertical form of standing rectangles emanating from a base form and crowned by a side-mounted, round "moon disk." But museums, art critics, and the public were puzzled by the new artistic expressions, and this "Concrete" exhibition at the Park restaurant's café by the shore of Djurgårdsbrunnsviken ended in economic catastrophe and personal tragedy for Otto G. Carlsund, who had pledged the works of the participating artists to finance the exhibition.
But Wiwen Nilsson continued to work on sculptural projects. In the early 1930s, for example, he entered a competition for artistic design to embellish Stortorget in Lund. He wanted to create a water basin and a pillar that would be placed side by side. Water would flow from the central "golden hemisphere" into concentric channels. The pillar would be about ten metres high and four-sided, tapering upwards in tiers. The crown would be adorned with Lund's coat of arms, and below it "the citizens of the city" would be depicted in bronze. The title of the sculpture was "We built the city". Wiwen Nilsson's proposal was among those purchased, but none of the competition entries were made. Instead, a black granite sculpture by the Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida was erected on the site in the 1970s.
When Wiwen Nilsson resumed his work on sculptures in the 1950s, he drew inspiration from his work in the 1920s. He was undoubtedly also influenced by GAN, whom he had met during his time in Paris in 1924/25. GAN later recalled their first meeting in Paris in handwritten notes: "To my surprise, I met a philosopher with a clearly articulated theoretical world view, and the only thing he lacked was knowledge of Dostoevsky." … "It did not take long before he, like me, was fascinated by the Russian genius."
"We did not discuss our Swedish genius Strindberg much - being Swedes, it wasn’t our main focus. Instead, our conversations revolved around the realm of visual arts, and I discovered a kindred spirit, a connection that has endured. As we strolled around the closed gates of the Luxembourg Gardens by night, we shared a vision: to build a cubist city amidst the picturesque chaos of Renaissance palaces, and preferably to flatten them to the ground to make way for room and for light!”. For Wiwen Nilsson, the encounter with the dynamic GAN held great significance. GAN was one of the most intriguing names in 20th-century Swedish art; he had created futuristic works since as early as 1914 and a few years later became a pioneer in purely non-figurative art. In the 1920s, he published “Den Gudomliga Geometrien” (The Divine Geometry), which became something of a bible for Swedish artists who wanted to do non-figurative painting. The collaboration between GAN and Wiwen Nilsson saw them exhibiting together from the 1920s and onward, with Wiwen Nilsson also executing the cover for a work on Swedish folk songs that was illustrated by GAN. The cover was made in chiseled and gilded copper relief at the newly opened workshop of the Dane Georg Jensen in Paris. According to Georg Jensen, Wiwen Nilsson's work was "some of the finest chiseling I have ever seen".
The collaboration with GAN endured through the years, marked by their profound discussions on metaphysics, religion and architecture. In early 1955, Wiwen Nilsson penned a letter to GAN: "Dear Gösta, my friend, I have created more granite sculptures as well as reliefs in silver, ebony and Cuban mahogany. I am eager to show them to you. It might just lead to an exhibition. Brace yourself, it will likely be 'a bomb'." True to his word, an exhibition was held later that same year. The sculptures were showcased both at a prestigious international fair in Helsingborg, as well as at the Malmö Museum. There, the imposing block sculptures were on display next to GAN's compositions, and GAN spoke at the event.
In 1943, the Swedish sculptor Christian Berg executed a bronze portrait bust of Wiwen Nilsson. The observer encounters a captivating face with sharp contours, defined eyebrows, and a determined mouth. The hair is cropped short and straight across the forehead, earning him the nickname "the monk." Wiwen Nilsson held strong religious beliefs, and he was particularly drawn to Greek Orthodox teachings. Among friends, he was perceived as a cheerful individual who could fill a room with positive vibrations.
He was also strong-willed and despite his brief time at school, he was well read and knowledgeable in many fields. With his great verbal skills, he could easily outmaneuver any debate opponent with cutting logic. His life path was clear from an early age. On his 75th birthday, he recounted: "When I went to school, Katedralskolan (the Cathedral School) here in Lund, I walked down a long street and a smaller narrow street. I saw everything three-dimensionally, I saw the space. I perceived the space as a problem that I wanted to solve. I thought everything mankind had made was wrong and I wanted to change it all. That was the beginning. Since then, I have sought the right proportions. The parts and the relationship between the parts must not be wrong." In 1940, he formulated it like this: "The only artistic effect I strive for is a vitalization of the rhythmic relationships in the proportion.” Wiwen Nilsson held three figures above all others: Christ, Meister Eckehart, and Dostoevsky. In a letter to GAN, Wiwen Nilsson quoted the German Dominican monk Eckehart: "Es ist aber bezeichnend für das Einfache selbst. Und das ist eben was wir wollen. Dass je einfacher etwas ist, desto kraftvoller ist es, mächtig gegen viele und über viele." ("But it is characteristic of the simple itself, and that is precisely what we want. The simpler something is, the more powerful it is, powerful against many and over many.")
This could also serve as the motto for Wiwen Nilsson's diabase sculpture from 1957.
