Alex Colard

ABOUT the artists

“It was a fantastic experience,” says Lena Granefelt. “It’s almost unreal that it is
Linné’s so-called type specimens, the ones he really held in his hand when he made his scientific ones
descriptions. The sheets are so detailed. To the eye, they appear grey-brown but with backlighting
the colors, paper texture, watermarks and handwriting emerge. The nerves of the leaves and
creases become apparent. The feeling becomes three-dimensional. The plants are brought to life visually. You get close at that time, the thoughts of Linnaeus and his disciples.”
“Lena Granefelt’s work is important both as art and science,” says Anna Bromberg Sehlberg at Galleri Glas. “These historical sheets are becoming increasingly fragile. It is a unique opportunity to get show these works to a contemporary audience.”

ABOUT the exhibition

In the exhibition A Linnean Collection, Lena Granefelt shows around thirty photographs from Carl von Linné’s herbarium for the first time.
The artist and photographer Lena Granefelt has worked in a documentary tradition since the 1990s, twenty years ago with nature as her main inspiration. Plants and vegetation are her particular passion. When she got to see some of Carl von Linné’s herbarium sheets at the National Museum of Natural History in 2019, she was deeply fascinated. The beauty of the ark and the stories told in the recorded notes and sketches of Linnaeus and his disciples captivated Granefelt. The idea was born of a photographic study to show these unique documents in a powerful visual manner to a contemporary art audience.

The herbarium collection at the National Museum of Natural History is less extensive and does not belong to Linne’s own collection, even if it has connections to him. Linne’s own collection was sold in 1784, six years after his death, to the British botanist James Edward Smith. He founded The Linnean Society, which since the 19th century has been housed in its own wing in Burlington House in London, originally a private palace from the 17th century. The collection and library occupy four floors, with its own staff of specialists. Lena Granefelt obtained permission in March 2022 to visit Burlington House and to set up a temporary photo studio in the historic premises, where she could photograph a selection of the historic sheets over a number of days under the supervision of archivists. Her selection includes, among other things, sheets from the collection of decorative urns from the time of Linnaeus with George Clifford, the director of the Dutch East India Company.

ABOUT the gallery

Galleri Glas was started to highlight contemporary art glass and to breathe new life into an art form that has a strong position in Swedish cultural heritage. The gallery has in a short time become a natural arena for meetings between artists and an initiated audience looking for unique objects. Galleri Glas opened in March 2017 and was founded by Anna Bromberg Sehlberg and Elin Forsberg. The gallery is located at Nybrogatan 34 in central Stockholm and shows ongoing separate exhibitions with leading Swedish and international glass artists.
Read more at http://www.galleriglas.se

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