The Blooming: Art and Botany at Waldemarsudde An interview with Karin Sidén, museum director of Waldemarsudde, on an exhibition and book that explores the relationship between art, flowers, and the cultivated landscape. Ulrika Lindqvist: Can you tell us how the idea for the exhibition came about? Karin Sidén: The exhibition The Blooming: Art and Botany is an identity project for Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde. Its point of departure is the relationship between art and flowering at Waldemarsudde, as well as the museum’s historic park and garden, which includes its own gardening practice and in house florist. Waldemarsudde has always been associated with both art and flowering, indoors and outdoors, but the idea behind this exhibition, which emerged several years ago, is to further highlight these connections and to expand the subject from the site specific to also include themes such as the artist’s garden as a phenomenon, flowers in relation to symbolism, the role of art in the development of botany as a science, and flowers as decoration in applied arts and as sensuous inspiration for music and poetry. UL: Could you tell us about Waldemarsudde’s connection to flowers and plant life? KS: Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde is a total work of art in which art, architecture, nature, park, and garden come together as a unified whole. This total work was created by the artist and collector Prince Eugen, who was also responsible for the design of the garden’s floral rooms, plantings, terraces, and the planting of trees in dialogue with the surrounding landscape, as well as with both older and newer buildings, the latter designed by the architect Ferdinand Boberg in close collaboration with Prince Eugen. Eugen acquired the Waldemarsudde estate in 1899 and immediately began transforming the site, including the garden, and he had a greenhouse for cultivating flowers built as early as 1902, before the main building was constructed between 1903 and 1905. UL: How did you decide on what to include in the exhibition, and how did the collection of the works come about? KS: The curators of The Blooming: Art and Botany are myself and the museum’s exhibition coordinator Catrin Lundeberg. We collaborated with the museum’s gardener, florist, and archivist, as well as with fifteen contemporary artists and lenders including major public art museums, other institutions, and private collectors in Sweden and abroad. The selection follows several themes: the artist’s garden at Waldemarsudde and as a broader phenomenon, floral symbolism past and present, art and botany as a science, and flowers as decoration, aesthetics, and sensuous experience. The exhibition presents historical and contemporary art, applied arts, and design from the sixteenth century to today side by side, with close to two hundred works in total. Prince Eugen at Waldemarsudde. Image courtesy of Waldemarsudde UL: How did you work to update the book Prince Eugen’s World of Flowers twelve years after its first release? KS: In connection with the exhibition, Waldemarsudde has produced an extensive publication of more than three hundred pages, richly illustrated and featuring essays by leading experts in art history, book arts, botany as a science, and garden history. There are also earlier publications, including a book on the garden at Waldemarsudde written by our gardener in 2014, and the so called Flower Book from the same year, produced together with the museum’s florist Kristina Öhman. UL: Were there any other exhibitions that served as inspiration for this one? KS: Several exhibitions have explored the theme of art and flowers, but none with exactly our approach. The exhibition at Waldemarsudde is entirely produced in house. The exhibition Language of Flowers at the Nationalmuseum in 2005 has been an inspiration. Shortly after our opening, we also saw that the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford had opened an exhibition on the same subject, which suggests that the theme is very much of the moment. UL: The book also discusses the Waldemarsudde pot. What is the story behind it? KS: The Waldemarsudde pot was designed by Prince Eugen in two sizes in 1915 in what is known as contra Jugend style. It was initially produced at the Gustavsberg porcelain factory and used in the home at Waldemarsudde, but was also given as gifts to family and friends. Since the 1950s, after Eugen’s death in 1947, it has been produced in additional sizes. In recent years, we have also developed versions in different colors and in glass, the latter in collaboration with the Reijmyre glassworks. UL: Do you have the pot at home, and what do you usually fill it with? KS: Yes, I love the Waldemarsudde pot and have several at home in different sizes, both the classic white versions, the anniversary color, and in glass. I use them for both potted plants and cut flowers. UL: The book covers the different seasons of the year. What are you most looking forward to this spring? What do you plan to grow or decorate with? KS: All seasons are beautiful at Waldemarsudde, both outdoors in the park and garden and indoors in the reception rooms of the main building. At home, I look forward to decorating in spring with beautiful varieties of tulips and narcissus in my Waldemarsudde pots. UL: Waldemarsudde is known for its beautiful tables and settings. If you could invite any four guests for dinner, who would they be? KS: I would invite Prince Eugen, although he passed away in 1947, the contemporary artist Cecilia Edefalk, the writer Paul Auster, and the pianist Roland Pöntinen. It would have been a fascinating dinner conversation. Image courtesy of Waldemarsudde Roland Persson “Head of Medusa” Photography Sara Appelgren
