A New Era - The Söndrum Colony

At the start of the 1940´s the Halmstad Group symptomatically retreat from surrealism. The members regroup on the west coast and in the small stone cutter and fishing village of Söndrum, a few miles from Halmstad, there is an intensive cultural blooming named Söndrumskolonin (The Söndrum Colony). Artists such as Sven X:et Erixson, Felix Hatz, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen and poets such as Elsa Grave and Erik Lindegren, along with many others gather here in the 40´s and 50´s. Dramatic and absurd surrealistic scenes are exchanged for nature motifs in luminous colours. The group´s members move in individual directions; nevertheless, though they take separate paths, surrealism remains a unifying tendency in their artwork. They continue to show together and the Group remains, though with looser ties.

Next: A lifelong alliance