January 30 - April 18, 2010 From brutal fairy-tales, blood-dripping self-portraits and merry depictions of drunken bouts, to angry political satire, loving portraits and lyrical depictions of home and family. Ivar Arosenius (1878-1909) was among the foremost artists of his generation: contradictory and many-talented, constantly balancing between the comic and the deadly serious. His works encompass the romantic and cynical, it is poetic as well as being a social protest. The exhibition at Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde is co-produced with Göteborgs konstmuseum (art museum) and shows the breadth and depth of the achievement and vision of Ivar Arosenius. In this comprehensive presentation, some 250 works will be shown, ranging from popular paintings and fairy-tale motifs, to richly illustrated letters and unknown juvenilia. Ivar Arosenius excelled at water-colour painting and small formats. He was an able storyteller and was constantly making references in his art to his own short but intense life. Arosenius' marriage and the birth of his daughter caused him to abandon his bohemian life - his home became his favoured motif and especially his daughter, nick-named Lillan ('little one'). She became the main character of his classic picture book Kattresan (the cat's journey) and other well-known children's tales. The exhibition also features more unknown aspects of Arosenius: "Many of the images feel topical today. Arosenius was very negative about the commercialization of the public space. We show his unerring satirical drawings, where he pokes fun at the usage of signboards," Johan Sjöström, curator at Göteborgs konstmuseum says. "Another interesting aspect is his way of telling a story in images, often in a format that foreshadows comic papers and popular culture." The hæmophilic Ivar Arosenius was born in Gothenburg in 1878 and died on New Year's Day in 1909, just 30 years old. He barely had time to experience his own artistic break-through, which took place at an exhibition at the Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg in November 1908.