“Silk shoes” – Helene Schjerfbeck
1114. Helene Schjerfbeck (Finland 1862‑1946). ”Silk shoes” / ”Sidenskon”.
Signed with monogram HS (reversed). Charcoal, 39.5 x 49.5 cm.
SEK 300.000 – 400.000 € 31.000 – 41.000
Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) had her second solo exhibition in 1937 at Stenman’s Art salon in Stockholm and it was a success and meant that she had the economical means to fulfill a dream. She could finally work in a graphical technique to be able to multiple a motif. Gösta Stenman, her gallery owner, helped her finding material to make lithographs, which was the planographic technique they together choose.
During her years of study in France and England during the 1880’s she had the will but not the opportunity. She made sporadic so called “scrape drawings” (a monographic scraping method on paper) during her years in St. Ives in Cornwall, England in 1887-1890. The technique meant that from a black applied surface lines were scraped in order to produce a motif, reminiscent of engravings, but without the possibility to reproduce the work. There was only a single original. Such a “scraped drawing” can at times be mistaken for an ordinary drawing. This was a new way of working for Helene Schjerfbeck. She readily worked with charcoal and her characteristic angular way of drawing gives her motifs a certain precision, despite the many lines. She made several charcoal drawings and this is one of the strongest.
She also needed to think conversely as her drawing on the material for printing would be reversed. She concluded that concerning the motif it did not really matter, but she wanted the text to be readable. Her monogram signature was therefore drawn reversed. She used material from earlier paintings and concentrated the actual motif. She removed details of room and the interior and was left with the main character from the painting. Silk Shoes or Dance Shoes, as the painting from 1882 is called, is one of six paintings she transferred into lithographs. The model was her cousin Esther Lupander, who had unusually long legs in her adolescence and loved to dress up. In the painting she is trying on a pair of white silk shoes.
Lena Holger
Author and art historian