Image: Nordic Watercolour Museum, Skärhamn
The Nordic Watercolour Museum in Skärhamn has opened its summer season with a slate of exhibitions drawn from both the museum’s collection and its current headline show. The museum says its main summer exhibition, 'Asger Jorn & Per Kirkeby', runs until 6 September 2026, while additional displays from the collection, including a dedicated presentation of Lars Lerin, also continue through the same date.
The museum’s summer programme centres on two of Denmark’s major postwar artists, Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby. In the exhibition page, the museum describes 'Asger Jorn & Per Kirkeby' as an extensive presentation of watercolours and drawings by the pair, noting that it highlights how they brought together intellectual sharpness and emotional force in their image-making during periods of major change. The museum also points to their differing generations and related interest in painting’s “inner magic.”
According to the museum, Jorn and Kirkeby are linked in the show through their use of watercolour and drawing, media that allow the institution to emphasise experimental aspects of both artists’ practices. Jorn, born in 1914 and a co-founder of the CoBrA movement, is presented as a key figure in European avant-garde art. Kirkeby, born in 1938 and trained as a geologist, is described by the museum as an important renovator of neo-expressionist painting in the 1980s. The exhibition is on view from 10 May to 6 September 2026.
Alongside the main exhibition, 'Ur museets samling' presents a selection from the museum collection in the gallery at the back of the building through 6 September. The institution says the collection is continually expanded through acquisitions of Nordic contemporary artists, often connected to exhibitions, and that it serves as a reflection of the museum’s history and of the development of watercolour art. The artists included in the current selection are Line Bergseth, Cecilia Edefalk, Kati Immonen, Bernd Koberling, Michael Kvium, Peter Köhler, Peter Land, Elina Merenmies, Julie Nord, Maria Nordin, Eggert Pétursson, Fredrik Söderberg, Johan Thurfjell, Gunnel Wåhlstrand and Christine Ödlund.
In the museum’s Samlingssal, a separate summer presentation focuses on Lars Lerin. The museum describes Lerin’s watercolours as marked by a masterful chiaroscuro effect and by repeated returns to familiar themes, with the eye moving across details such as house façades, birch trunks, snow patches, abandoned farms and industrial towns. The institution places imagery from Lofoten, India and Värmland within the same body of work, stressing the proximity of near and far in Lerin’s pictorial world. This display also runs until 6 September 2026.
The museum’s August newsletter also lists a series of public programmes, including 'Akvarellverkstad på bryggan' during Västerhavsveckan from 1 to 9 August, a workshop with SMHI and the museum on 4 August, 'UngKonst' for ages 13–18 from 11 to 13 August, a sign-language-guided tour on 15 August, 'Prata/Skapa' on 27 August and 'Skatter & Skräp / Bytardag på museet' on 29 August. The museum is open daily from 11 to 17 until 6 September, before closing for an exhibition change from 7 to 26 September 2026.
