The Swedish American Museum will be looking good this Summer with the arrival of 17 Swedish Designers, a traveling exhibit opening this Friday, June 4, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.!  17 Swedish Designers features 17 award-winning female artists and designers specializing in textiles, furniture, glass works, and other mediums. 

The exhibit’s artists and designers each display three to ten pieces, celebrating female artists and designers as well as Swedish innovative design.  “I think we have a long tradition of strong women,” says Camilla Diedrich, one of the designers in the exhibit.  For more information on the exhibit and its designers, please click here.  The following events scheduled for 17 Swedish Designers at the Museum are:

Exhibit opening: Friday, June 4, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Gallery Walk: Saturday, June 5, 11 a.m.
Start with Art: Wednesday, June 9, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Family Night: Friday, June 25, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Book Talk and Signing with Lilly Setterdahl

If you stick around after the Gallery Walk on Saturday, June 5, you will also have a chance to see Lilly Setterdahl talk about her new book, Chicago Swedes: They Spoke from the Heart, as well as have a copy signed by the Swedish-American author!   Setterdahl says some of the most important things to know about Swedes in Chicago are that they founded some 60 churches, hundreds of secular organizations and thousands of businesses, including 36 Swedish American periodicals in Chicago alone.  

“The Swedes in Chicago also founded colleges, seminaries, and hospitals, and they constructed a large number of significant buildings that are still standing,” Setterdahl adds.  “Their crowning achievement is the establishment of the Swedish American Museum.”  Learn all this and more from Lilly Setterdahl at the Chicago Swedes: They Spoke from the Heart book talk and signing taking place at noon at the Museum.  For more information, please click here.