Inge Schiöler, Blue water – Purple cliffs, oil on canvas,
73 x 81cm, signed and dated INGE SCHIÖLER 1965.

Inge Schiöler
Landscapes of Koster
31 January – 22 February

Opening hours Mon – Fri 10–18 Sat 12–16

In recent decades, interest in Western Swedish art, especially works by the so-called Göteborgskoloristerna, has increased not only regionally but throughout the country. For Åmells, the exhibition Inge Schiöler - the composer of colours in 2011 was the start of a series of highly appreciated thematic exhibitions, among which West Coast Painters 2019 and West Coast Painters: from Carl Wilhelmson to Inge Schiöler 2022 confirmed that high-quality Western Swedish motifs are still in great demand. Liljevalchs Konsthall's two critically acclaimed exhibitions on Åke Göransson and Inge Schiöler in autumn 2022 were further proof of the continued popularity of Gothenburg colourism.

Now Åmells has the pleasure of presenting a sequel to the successful 2011 exhibition on Inge Schiöler. The exhibition comprises some twenty works in oil and pastel, mainly landscapes from the Koster Islands. The starting point, as last time, is to show the environments that meant the most to the artist - places where he found his soul and his heart and landscapes that over time became almost synonymous with his artistry.

Inge Schiöler did not have an easy life. For 27 long years he was hospitalised in Gothenburg, for some of that time completely unable to create art. One wonders what force made him slowly return from the darkness. We imagine it was his artistry, his indomitable drive to translate his moving soul into form and colour. Inge Schiöler may have been lucky enough to be surrounded by helpful relatives, but there should be no doubt that it takes enormous resources of both talent and willpower to overcome a fate such as his.

All the paintings in the exhibition were executed after Inge Schiöler had gradually recovered and finally put his mental illness behind him. The paintings consistently testify to a strong life and creative force, but also to the artist's changing temperament. Sometimes the motifs are rendered with nervously swirling brushwork, sometimes with long, calm brushstrokes. Sometimes the landscapes are depicted in lyrical, shimmering colours, sometimes with overwhelmingly strong, bursting colours in thickly applied layers and bright contrasts.

Welcome to see and experience a new hand-picked selection from what we consider to be the best of Inge Schiöler's rich production.

Autumn exhibition 2024

READ THE CATALOGUE HERE (IN SWEDISH)

Selected Works

Archipelago houses in the summer sun,
oil on canvas, 50 x 55 cm,
signed INGE SCHIÖLER.

Archipelago houses
in the summer sun

Archipelago Houses in Summer Sun is a very inviting painting, radiating joy, calm and harmony. It is clear that the brushstrokes have been applied slowly. Especially in the upper part of the painting, where the sky, the houses and the ground are rendered as whole, well-connected fields of colour, it is clear that the artist has worked with calm, confident brushstrokes. In the sea area, the brushwork becomes somewhat more fluid. The reflections of sunlight in the water and the light foam on the waves have been captured with the help of small dabs and patches of white, blue and turquoise-green paint that Schiöler has dabbed onto the canvas.

Glittering Sun on the Sea, Oil on canvas,
27 x 35 cm, signed INGE SCHIÖLER

Glittering sun on the sea

Glittering sun on the sea is a recurring motif for Schiöler. The painting is strongly reminiscent of several similar works that experts have dated to the late 1940s, and it was most likely painted at around the same time. Here, the viewer can easily imagine himself in the artist's place, in the bow of a small boat anchored somewhere in the waters off Strömstad. Inge Schiöler has absorbed the salt-saturated sea air and summarised its crystal-clear freshness as a light-blue haze with thin, almost transparent cloud streaks at the top of the painting. Closer to the horizon, the clouds thicken and the colour changes to light, pale violet shades. Further along in the picture plane, the water takes over. Here the artist has allowed the brushes to catch the sun's rays, which are reflected on the surface of the sea in the form of scattered small patches of pure white colour.

The light cliffside, olja på duk,
55,5 x 61 cm signerad och daterad INGE SCHIÖLER 1966.

The light cliffside

The light cliffside is characterised, as the title suggests, by a light and airy touch, made possible by a fairly light colouring, where the colour applied to the palette is mixed with a lot of white. But the light only really dominates the foreground, where the thinly vegetated mountain slope itself spreads out under and in front of the artist's feet. Further away, in the background, the colour scale darkens towards increasingly muted shades of blue, where the small bays of the sea creep in towards the mountain peaks like narrow lobes and from there fade out almost imperceptibly against the deep blue sky.

Siesta, oil on canvas,
41 x 55 cm, signed INGE SCHIÖLER.

Siesta

This wonderfully powerful painting feels both typical and unusual for its author. Typical in that it is bursting with pastel paint in strong, bright colours, but somewhat unusual in that it is not a pure landscape painting. Inge Schiöler's paintings from Bohuslän, especially from the area around Strömstad and the islands beyond, are usually devoid of people. Even in the paintings where the human presence is manifested in the form of roads, buildings or boats, nature dominates in a very tangible way. In the present work, two people are seen sitting on the ground along a tree-lined path right next to the sea. They are rather small and sketchy, but the title of the painting suggests that they, and their calm, peaceful interaction, are the main subject of the work. According to the painting's previous owner, the people in the picture represent the artist's mother Anna Schiöler and one of her grandchildren, and the location of the painting is Styrsö in the Gothenburg archipelago.

See the artworks in our online gallery

Inge SchiölerLandscapes of Koster 31 January – 22 February