Home » Exhibits & Collection
The Museum has a special exhibit gallery with four exhibits each year, and a permanent exhibit featuring the immigration to Chicago at the end of the 1800s.
The collection has approximately 12,000 objects that have been donated by members and friends of the Museum over the last 32 years. We annually update sections of the permanent exhibit so that we can showcase many of the beautiful donated items.
We often feature a donation or Swedish tradition in our newsletter, Flaggan, and you can find the most recent article in the section Notes from Curator.
Exhibit opening: Friday, June 4, 6 p.m.-8 p.m.
Gallery walk: Saturday, June 5, 11 a.m.
On Friday, June 4, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., the traveling exhibit 17 Swedish Designers stops at the Museum as part of its 2009-2011 U.S. Tour. 17 Swedish Designers features 17 award-winning female artists and designers specializing in textiles, furniture, glass works, and other mediums. It is based off the book 17 Swedish Designers, chez Pascale by designer Pascale Cottard-Olsson, who portraited all 17 designers as well as reflected on her career.
All 17 designers exhibited at the small Gallery Pascale in Stockholm early in their careers, and they reunite in the book and exhibit, 17 Swedish Designers. The exhibit’s artists and designers each display three to ten of their latest pieces, celebrating female artists and designers as well as Swedish innovative design.
Designers in the exhibit are:
Pia Amsell, Carina Seth-Andersson, Lena Bergström, Camilla Diedrich, Monica Förster, Front, Anki Gneib, Nina Jobs, Anna Kraitz, Lotta Kühlhorn, Anna Lerinder, Ulrika Mårtensson, Anna von Schewen, Eva Schildt, Sara Szyber, Pia Törnell and Barbro Wesslander
Events scheduled for 17 Swedish Designers 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.
17 Swedish Designers is sponsored by Ikea Shaumburg, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince, City Arts Grants, and the Illinois Arts Council.
To find out more about Ikea, please click here.
On Friday, Sept. 3, 2010, the Museum’s new exhibit titled Nordic Light opens, which is a collection of paintings about light in nature by artist Johan Thunberg. From forest to sea and everything in between, through all kinds of weather and seasons, Thunberg attempts to capture and display the “special light” in nature. Using Swedish landscape in his own naturalistic and individualistic way, the artist claims to give the same he sees—all the beautiful things that nature gives you.
Events scheduled for Nordic Light are:
Our permanent exhibit, A Dream of America: Swedish Immigration to Chicago is located on the second floor of the Museum. The exhibit explores the struggles and triumphs of the Swedish immigrant experience and asks the question: would you leave home today in search of a better tomorrow?
The exhibit follows Swedish immigrants from the arduous journey to the new world to building a life and community in Chicago. It examines topics such as why so many Swedes left their homeland and what they packed for their voyage, as well as careers they chose in the Chicago area and the social lives within their immigrant communities. Visitors will encounter authentic artifacts that reflect the experiences and perspectives of immigrants – from household items they brought from Sweden and travel items such as passports and steamship tickets to memorabilia from Chicago-based Swedish-American organizations and Swedish folk crafts produced in the United States and abroad.
Visitors meet many characters within the exhibit, including, Stina Olofsdotter , who is helping her son prepare for his journey to America in 1868; Karl Karlson, whose family arrives in New York in 1893; and Elin Hedman and her daughter Birgitta who passed through Ellis Island in 1924.
Visitors can also trace the history of the Museum itself – which was founded by a Swedish Immigrant, Kurt Mathiasson, in 1976 – from a small storefront on Clark Street to a three-floor cultural institution.
Come explore the lives of those who transformed Chicago into the Swedish Capital of North America!
