Nell Walden

in Swedish

Nell Walden

Nell Walden was an unusually talented, versatile and energetic woman. A priest's daughter from Landskrona, with a surname after an American novel, which she got when she married a German publisher. More about how Nell got the name Walden ↓

Nell - the baptismal certificate said Nelly - Roslund is considered Sweden's first female abstract artist and was a central figure in the German Der Sturm movement.

Visit Landskrona museum and see the exhibition about Nell Walden and Der Sturm. Some early works↓

Nell i Stormen - Der Sturm

The turn of the century brings out more than the usual New Year's expectations. Once again, the old must be properly thrown out.

Airplanes, cars, engines, 'deadly' trains that ran at more than 30 km/h, and telephones and electrification. It's no wonder that artists in all fields had an changing new world to relate to.

FThe Futurists in Italy wrote manifestos. Composers wrote machine music and the Cubists cut their portraits into twisted modules, almost as the great industrialists cut factory work into time modules.

In Germany, artist groups were created like Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. More about Der Sturm ↓

Nell Walden in Landskrona

Nell Roslund's first interest was music and she graduated as an organist in Lund. Her parents invited her and her sister on a trip to Lübeck. Her interest in Germany and German culture took root immediately. At home in Landskrona, Nell meets an exuberant woman from Berlin, Gertrud Schlasberg, who in 1907 married a Swedish clothing manufacturer.

It is in Gertrud's home that Nell, engaged to a Swedish officer, sees the magazine. Der Sturm and later meets her first husband, Herwarth Walden.

Nell marries Herwarth Walden

Nell and Gertrud Schlasberg meet often, and speak German and German culture. One afternoon Herwarth Walden is there, he is Gertrud's brother and is a musician, publisher and founder of the magazine Der Sturm. Nells life is abou to change.

Nell writes I was really surprised! The way he looked! Long blond hair, white face with blue, nearsighted eyes behind a pair of glasses. And his hands! Very fine musician's hands! He played his own compositions. He made a strong impression on me. Yes, I was completely captivated!

I was very impressed by both him and his music. It was a wonderful few hours. When Herwarth heard how interested I was in his magazine, he promised to send it to me regularly. When I had left, he said to his sister: "This Miss Nell Roslund shall be my wife!"
Read Nell in 'Stormen' about Gertrud's reply:

Om Herwarth Walden

Herwarth Levin was born in 1878. He was musically gifted and composed and played the piano. He married the German lyricist Else Lasker-Schüler↗, who thought he should change his name to Walden.

In 1854, American author Henry David Thoreau↗ enW published his book Walden. It is a somewhat idyllic depiction of a simple everyday life close to and in nature, but is also a critique of the emerging modern society. Thoreau lived for two years by a pond, in a house he built himself. It is sometimes said that he lived alone in the woods, but he had a steady stream of visitors and had his clothes washed. The book is an American classic, which also inspired anarchists and people like Tolstoy and Gandhi. The first Swedish edition, translated by Frans G Bengtsson, came out in 1924. In 2006 a new translation was published by Natur och Kultur.

Herwarth marries Nell Roslund in 1912. They are married until 1924, when Nell distances herself from Herwarth's subversive ideals. Herwarth became chairman of the Friends of the Soviet Union in Germany and moved to Russia in 1933. In 1941 he was arrested and died in captivity.

Pictures of and by Nell Walden

The picture on the left is the Walden couple on an outing in Copenhagen with Gertrud and Henning Schlasberg (the author's grandfather's brother). On the right is a sophisticated and very elegant woman drinking tea/coffee in a Berlin salon setting. Part of this picture is as a portrait at the top. The painting remains there, to mark the closeness to art and culture.

Several of the artists in Der Sturm have painted, drawn or sculpted Nell Walden. She was both an artist with her own creative power and a source of inspiration and organizer for much within the Der Sturm movement.

In 2002, PhD Jessica Sjöholm published an article about 'Nell Walden, seen from a gender perspective'. It is very readable and, among other things, addresses the expression Künstlerehepaar, i.e. Artist couple as a term and concept.

Herwarth was a critic, polemicist and art theorist; he was a norm-setter and pioneer within the German avant-garde. Nell was a fellow combatant, constant secretary and the ”genius”s beautiful wife. Herwart was a radical, the founder of the Sturm movement and an economic risk-taker. Nell was petty bourgeois, conventional and the activity's faithful financier. That Der Sturm was dependent on the efforts of both does not seem to have been foreseen by anyone until now.

In most contexts where Nell Walden is mentioned, her work is overshadowed by her beauty. In the classical way, he is praised for what he did and she for what she was. This was also often reflected when Sturm artists portrayed the Walden couple. A review of an admittedly limited number of portraits shows that Herwarth is depicted as dynamic, powerful and intense, while the style of the portraits of Nell is static and mainly focuses on a mimetic representation of her external features.

Nell Walden after 1924

The Herwarth Walden mass was a turning point in her life. However, she continued to work with Der Sturm for another two years. Nell remarried the Jewish doctor Hans Heimann, who was murdered by the Nazis. She took this very hard and became temporarily blind. She moved to Switzerland in 1924 and continued to work with both her own art and with documenting Der Sturm. She published, among other things, two books about Herwarth Walden and Der Sturm - see below.

In 1940, Nell Walden remarried the Swiss sports teacher Hannes Urech and lived a good life with him until 1963, when he died. Nell's contacts with Landskrona increased and the Landskrona Museum received her estate when she died in 1975. You can see a film at the museum, where Nell Walden is interviewed about her life. Large parts of her art collection were auctioned in 1954 and some parts are also in Stockholm and Bern, among others.

The museum director in Landskrona at the time - Sven B Ek, who wrote very appreciatively about his meetings with Nell Walden, scattered her ashes in the Öresund (strait between Sweden and Denmark). The circle was closed for a fascinating life journey. Bild på gravplatsen

Der Sturm was a magazine published in Germany between 1910 and 1932.It was an important forum for German expressionism in art, literature, theater and music. Der Sturm was founded by Herwarth Walden. It was first published weekly and later twice a month. In 1970, all editions were reprinted. Läs mer om Der Sturm på tyska ↗ deW.

In 1913, Der Sturm's gallery held an important exhibition called The First German Autumn Salon. It was a breakthrough and many artists who are now famous participated in the exhibition.

The Blue Rider

In 1911, some artists created a new group - Der Blaue Reiter ↗ enW. Among the founders were Wassily Kandinsky ↗ enW, Franz Marc ↗ svW, August Macke ↗ enW och Paul Klee.The group remained together until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Some of the members died in the war. Another short-lived group was called Die Brücke ↗ enW

Herwarth Walden and his wife Nell are very committed and active. Der Sturm becomes a bit of a brand and the business is expanded to include a gallery, publishing house, production of art postcards, theatre and teaching. Read more in the excellent introduction Nell i Stormen (in Swedish).

In 2000, the open-air museum 'Kulturen' in Lund, in collaboration with the Museums- und Kunstvereins Osnabrück, had an exhibition called Swedish avant-garde and Der Sturm in Berlin. This catalogue is a must if you want to delve into Der Sturm and Herwart Walden. It also contains interesting articles about GAN (IDstory) and others.

Freya Mühlhaupt has written a somewhat critical article about Herwarth Walden. She also writes that Nell Walden's description - in her books - of the Walden couple's role during the First World War has proven to be a greatly embellished representation.Among other things, it has emerged that Herwarth Walden was paid by the German state to publish pro-German articles in the Scandinavian press. After the end of the war in 1918, things got worse for Der Sturm and in 1917 it was already replaced by a superior newspaper competitor called Das Kunstblatt. After the end of the World War, Der Sturm's gallery activities became less unique and important, also from a European perspective.

Composition. C:a 1920

Watercolor on paper circa 1920

Nell Walden 1915. 2 differentworks of art.The images on the right are partial enlargements. The images are published with permission from Landskrona Museum↗.

Nell Walden as an artist

Nell Walden undoubtedly holds an important place in Swedish art history. She is unique both for being Sweden's first female abstract artist, and for her work in and for the Der Sturm art movement..

Go to Landskrona Museum and see the permanent exhibition about and by Nell Walden. There are over 100 works - maybe not so many today - by Nell Walden hanging there. All donated by the artist.

The works show her work in several different techniques. Oil, watercolor, ink drawings, tempera, stained glass and more. Her stained glass paintings(Hinterglasbilden in German) she exhibited for the first time in April 1917 at the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin. She had been inspired, among other things, by the artist Gabriele Münter, today perhaps best known for living with Kandinsky.

As far as the author of these lines knows, there is no book today, apart from a few shorter booklets from Landskrona Museum - that presents Nell Walden's work. The excellent book 'Nell i Stormen' is a story of her life in relation to Der Sturm, but there is no book about her own works.

Göterborg's art museum↗ had in 2007 an exhiubition about Modern women , women painters in the Nordic countries 1910 - 1930. Nell Walden was for some reason not represented.

The gravesite is at Landskrona new cemetary in block 35.

References

• About BiBB, an encyclopedia 4.0 and media company
• Cemetary map
• Jessica Sjöholm, tidskriften Valör 2002:2
  Madonnan och dvärgen. Genusvetenskapliga perspektiv på Nell Walden och Der Sturm
• Nell Walden, (2) Sturmkonstnärer och schweizisk nutidskonst - Landskrona kulturförvaltning
• Nell Walden & Lothar Schreyer 1954, Ein Erinnerungsbuch an Herwarth Walden und die Künstler aus dem Sturmkreis.
• Nell Walden, Herwarth Walden Ein Lebensbild
• Nell i Stormen, Jan Mark m fl. Utgiven av Landskrona kulturförvaltning
• Historiska bilder: Landskrona Museum
• Text/photo: Johan Schlasberg

Published: 2005.06 Updated: 2025.06.18

Kategorier 20 Historical persons 45 Landskrona 14

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