Ernst Billgren has been one of Sweden's most renowned artists since the 1980s. From the spring to the autumn of 2025, Nationalmuseum displayed a selection of his work – including several new paintings based on existing artworks in the museum's collections.
Ernst Billgren challenges the art world’s unwritten laws and unspoken expectations with work that combines traditional art historical motifs with pop culture references and kitsch.
This exhibition featured about two dozen artworks by Billgren, in which the artist playfully related to classical painting. Billgren put his own spin to the museum’s artworks, like the well-known painting Bringing Home the Body of King Karl XII of Sweden. Other works reflected the landscape paintings and still lifes of the Baroque.
When I paint others’ works, I’m unaffected by my own aesthetic taste, which leaves me much freer. I’m able to paint just about anything then. We are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. This is a way of breathing new life into the painting, skills, and ideals of generations past, only with a new story.
Ernst Billgren, artwork that will be featured in the exhibition. Foto: Anna Danielsson/Nationalmuseum
Ernst Billgren, artwork that will be featured in the exhibition. Foto: Anna Danielsson/Nationalmuseum
Ernst Billgren, artwork that will be featured in the exhibition. Foto: Anna Danielsson/Nationalmuseum
Ernst Billgren, Königsberg. Foto: Anna Danielsson/Nationalmuseum
Portrait of Ernst Billgren in his studio. Foto: Anna Danielsson/Nationalmuseum.
About the artist
Ernst Billgren was born in Stockholm in 1957. He made a name for himself as an artist in the mid-eighties, before he had even graduated from Gothenburg’s Valand Academy of Art and Design. He was a key figure in the breakthrough of postmodernism in Sweden, along with other artists like Max Book, Ingrid Orfali and Dan Wolgers. Billgren’s tongue-in-cheek approach to modernist tradition and popular culture was one of the most noteworthy artistic expressions of the decade.
Billgren’s oeuvre is characterised by its impressive scope. The artist works with a range of artforms – painting, sculpture, and graphic art – and likes to combine different materials, like oil paint, glass, tiles, and wood. Billgren’s imagery is often rooted in myths and sagas, with recurring motifs of animals depicted in nature as well as modern interiors.
Per Hedström, the exhibition’s curator says that Ernst Billgren’s way of subverting art historical traditions invites us to look at older art with fresh eyes. He challenges the art world’s unwritten laws and unspoken expectations in a way few others do.
Ernst Billgren – New Memories showcased several brand-new pieces that were a nod to classical paintings in the museum’s collections. The 19th century’s Romanticism, for example, popped up in Billgren’s paintings as impressive ships and Gothic cathedrals. In Billgren’s world, however, there is an absurdity to the drama of Romanticism: ships sailed right through the cathedral’s choir. Several series reflected the landscape paintings and still lifes of the Baroque, only the motifs in them gradually crumbled and collapsed in a final catastrophe.
Several of the paintings in the exhibition were directly inspired by artworks in Nationalmuseum’s own collections. One of the clearest examples was Billgren’s remake of Gustaf Cederström’s famous Bringing Home the Body of King Karl XII of Sweden, whereby the artist created his own version of the well-known scene.
These past few decades, Billgren has branched out into cinema, theatre, music, and scenography, designed furniture, participated in TV programmes, and written multiple books. His writing often focuses on the art world and explores fundamental questions related to artistic quality and the purpose of art.