iNationalmuseum · Blasieholmen
To the Sea!
A day at the beach in 200+ paintings, photos, posters and swimwear, tracing coastal tourism 1870s-1950s, with Monet, Zorn, Krøyer, Hjertén and O'Keeffe.
Radio critic Måns Hirschfeldt called the best painting here "a billowing steam engine by Claude Monet", and admitted it only fits the beach theme with good will. It makes sense once you know the story starts with the railway: new lines carried holidaymakers to the Normandy coast from the 1870s.
From there some 200 paintings, photographs, posters and period swimwear move on to the Skagen painters, early 20th-century sea-bathing nudes and 20th-century beaches, from crowded New York to the Swedish west coast. Loans come from the Met, the Musée d'Orsay and the National Gallery. Reviews split. Hirschfeldt found the opening weak and the concept scattered, with the later rooms (Jansson, Munch) lifting it. DN's Jessica Kempe was positive about the sensual light painting. In a Stockholm October, with the sun gone before six, 200 pictures of summer is a Tuesday afternoon spent back in July.
Entry is SEK 160 and free under 20. Thursdays the museum stays open until 20:00. The audioguide runs 21 tracks, 48 minutes, on your phone.
Editor's pick
The best painting here, said radio critic Måns Hirschfeldt, is a Monet steam train: the railway is what took holidaymakers to the coast. Then 200 works, from Krøyer's Skagen to Munch's Bathing Boys. Reviews split; Hirschfeldt preferred the later rooms.
Look for
Monet, Arrival of the Normandy Train (1877)
A steam locomotive in the station, the painting Hirschfeldt singled out as the best in the show.
Krøyer, Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer on the beach at Skagen (1893)
Two women of the Skagen colony on the sand, from the section on the Danish painters who also painted the fishing community.
Munch, Bathing Boys (1897/99)
Boys bathing, part of the early 20th-century section on invigorating sea baths and nude bathers.
Hjertén, Figures on Beach (1917)
A Swedish modernist beach scene, in the colourful west-coast strand of the 20th-century section.
Caillebotte, Trouville, the beach and the villas (1882)
The Normandy resort as railways made it, with the villas behind the beach.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- First-Timers
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You want a single-artist show: this one spreads across dozens of painters and photographers.
With kids
Entry is free for under-20s.
Free in the same building
- The Design DepotFree open storage with 1,200+ objects telling the story of ceramics and design from the 18th century on, plus a changing mini-show from the collections.
- The Sculpture CourtyardA glass-roofed piazza of 19th-century sculpture, from Thor, Odin and Balder to the shift from idealism to realism. Free, on the ground floor.
Also at Nationalmuseum
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- To the Sea!Courtesy of Nationalmuseum
- Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian – Tehran/New YorkCourtesy of Moderna Museet
- Jan Håfström – The Lost WorldCourtesy of Moderna Museet
- MUCHA – Beyond Art NouveauCourtesy of Artipelag
- NationalmuseumJacob Shaw / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska museet)Holger.Ellgaard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- The Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren)Holger.Ellgaard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Moderna MuseetHolger Ellgaard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Royal Palace of Stockholm (Kungliga slottet)Magnus Johansson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0