This autumn, the Thiel Gallery continues the celebration of its centennial with an exhibition focusing on portrayals of amusements and nightlife in early 20th-century art. How did artists portray carnivals, parties and costume balls, café nightlife, variety shows, races, circuses and dancing? Society was turbulent, and art sometimes offered an escape from everyday worries.

Art and merriment have always gone together at the Thiel Gallery. One evening in March 1907, Signe Maria and Ernest Thiel opened their new home and gallery with a masked ball that has become legendary; the walls between the paintings were covered with fresh roses, and a janitor on the balcony above scattered petals on the guests as they arrived to the party. The intense social life of the couple turned the art palace at Blockhusudden into vibrant meeting place for artists and writers in the early 1900s.

The Sweet Life is divided into themes, such as masquerades, cafés, variety shows, dancing and circus. The works in the exhibition are borrowed from other collections or belong to the Gallery, and range from 1886 to 1925, when the formerly private residence opened as a museum.

This is a voyage in time and space: Paris in the early 20^th century appears in Axel Törneman’s absinthe-green paintings of cafés, while Edvard Munch made etchings of bars in fin-de siècle Berlin with card-playing bohemians, and Otte Sköld painted colourful cabaret scenes from Copenhagen around the First World War. At home, in Sweden, Sigrid Hjertén painted dream-like masquerades. We also meet Arvid Fougstedt’s rapid drawings of moments from the carnivals in Madrid, and Vera Nilsson’s wild musicians in Andalusia. In addition to these illustrious names, works by lesser-known artists also feature in the exhibition, including Gösta von Hennigs, Josef Svanlund, Annie Bergman, Ivan Lönnberg and Brita Nordencreutz. Fascinating oeuvres that have been undeservedly neglected.

All these artists were intrigued by bodies in motion and the drama of night cafés, dance halls and circus arenas. We are treated to costume balls, seedy bars and variety shows. Sometimes buoyant, sometimes menacing, but always with a jazzy, carnivalesque fervour. This exhibition highlights the theme of revelry in art but also emphasises that art itself is a party worth celebrating again and again.

Acknowledgements to lenders
We are grateful to Eskilstuna Konstmuseum, Gothenburg Art Museum, Jönköping läns konstförening, Gävleborg County Museum, Malmö Art Museum Moderna Museet, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts, The City of Stockholm art collection, Västerås Konstmuseum and private collectors.

In conjunction with the exhibition, we are producing a richly-illustrated catalogue with essays by the exhibition’s curator, Adam Korpskog, and the radio host and writer Kalle Lind.