Image: Tyra Kleen in her studio in Rome, 1904. Reproduction photo Bobbo Lindblad, 2016 / Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE, Ålesund
A lecture on Tyra Kleen is set for Thursday 20 August at Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE in Ålesund, where Karin Ström Lehander will speak about the artist and her work. The event, titled 'Foredrag: Tyra Kleen – kunstner og kosmopolitt', is presented as a focused introduction to research on the Swedish artist, photographer and world traveller Tyra Kleen (1874–1951), described by the organisers as a forgotten artist, and it is linked directly to the exhibition 'Tyra Kleen – Evig søkende', which remains on view in KUBE until 13 September.
According to the museum, doors open at 18:00, giving visitors the chance to see the exhibition before the talk begins. The lecture itself runs from 19:00 to 20:00 in Overlyssalen at Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE. Admission is listed at 60 kroner, while artists and art students may attend free of charge.
Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE is the art museum in Ålesund that presents both historical Jugendstil material and rotating contemporary exhibitions. The museum says KUBE has step-free access and lifts to all floors, and it uses the venue for a range of public activities including guided tours, concerts and lectures. The current Tyra Kleen exhibition is one of the featured items in that programme.
The exhibition around which the lecture is built was produced by Norrköpings konstmuseum and curated by Helena Scragg in dialogue with Ström Lehander, in collaboration with Uppsala konstmuseum, Bohusläns museum and Hallands Konstmuseum. The museum describes it as the first large exhibition devoted to Kleen to be shown in Norway, and says it was seen at Norrköpings Konstmuseum in 2024 before touring to the three collaborating Swedish museums.
The lecture page says Ström Lehander is among the Nordic region's leading experts on Tyra Kleen. It identifies her as a doctoral fellow in art history at Åbo Akademi and says she has published extensively on the artist. The museum also notes that she has contributed to several exhibitions devoted to Kleen's life and work, including 'Tyra Kleen. Ständigt sökande', the Swedish original of the show now presented in KUBE as 'Tyra Kleen – Evig søkende'.
The source material presents Kleen as an artist whose practice combined the mysterious, the morbid and the beautiful, and as someone working in dialogue with Art Nouveau and Symbolism. It also frames her life as independent and adventurous at a time when women still lacked the right to vote, placing the lecture within a broader effort to bring her back into art-historical visibility without claiming any details beyond what the museum provides.
Ström Lehander's wider exhibition and curatorial background is also outlined on the event page. The museum says she took part in the curation of 'Två konstnärskap i vår tids ljus' at Östergötlands museum in 2016 and 'Rebeller och Mademoiseller – Emma Toll, Tyra Kleen, Märta Rudbeck' at Norrköpings konstmuseum in 2021. It also credits her with presenting Kleen's art through SVT's series 'Konsthistorier' in 2018.
The announcement keeps the focus on the lecture as a specific interpretive event around the exhibition. In the museum's own wording, the evening is meant to offer insight from Ström Lehander's research and a closer look at the artist behind the works on display in KUBE, with the talk taking place on Thursday 20 August from 19:00 to 20:00 at Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE in Ålesund.
