13 October 2001 - 13 January 2002  Ernst Josephson  Strömkarlen, 1884  (The Water Sprite) In the autumn of 2001, Prince Eugen's Waldemarsudde will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Josephson with one of the largest exhibitions ever to have been devoted to this artist. The opening of the exhibition will coincide with the re-opening of the Manor, which has undergone extensive refurbishment over the past six months. The exhibition will comprise some 200 works, mainly paintings and drawings, which will provide a comprehensive picture of this prominent Swedish artist. Ernst Josephson's artistic ambitions were initially all but humble. He is often quoted to have said, "I will be Sweden's Rembrandt or die!" He did manage, while still at the Royal Academy, to achieve some acclaim, winning a Royal medal for his historical painting Sten Sture d ä befriar den danska drottningen Kristina ur Vadstena kloster (Sten Sture The Elder, Rescuing Queen Kristina of Denmark from Vadstena Convent). This provided him with the means to study abroad, in Paris, the Netherlands and Italy, where his fascination for the old masters prompted him to paint excellent copies of works by artists such as Rembrandt and Raphael. In the 1880s, he was the spokesman for the Swedish opponents to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and became a central figure for the Nordic artist colony in Paris. "He had a victorious air that he apparently thought would flummox everyone he met," was the artist Georg Pauli's description of him in the role of opposition leader, and Per Hasselberg made a famous bronze bust portraying him in this role in the early 1880s, dressed in a Calabrian hat and a flowing scarf. A loss of trust in his colleagues, combined with high expectations on his own breakthrough - expectations that were thwarted - led to a mental breakdown around 1888. After that point, his production took another direction. He began to dissolve conventional depiction, without, however, abandoning the underlying academic ideal. A large section of the exhibition will be devoted to these so-called works of illness. His work during this period, which is characterised by great empathy and vivid imagination, was later to inspire Swedish 20th century modernists in many ways. One motif that particularly enthralled Josephson was the water sprite, shown both in sketches and in finished paintings in this exhibition. Nowhere is the painter's oscillation between romanticism and realism more clearly manifest than in these pictures. In 1884, he painted Strömkarlen (The Water Sprite) from a live model in Eggedal in Norway, a painting that so obviously belongs at Waldemarsudde. The fact that the painting was offered by Prince Eugen as a gift to the National Museum in 1893 and was declined in a startling way by the acquisitions committee aroused strong feelings at the time. Instead, it was given a permanent home in a special wall niche in Prince Eugen's private parlour at Waldemarsudde, where it can be seen to this day. Strömkarlen stands as a symbol for this visionary, and at the same time tragic, artist's life. This highlighting of Ernst Josephson's entire production, offers a penetrating and fascinating insight into one of our most prominent and multifaceted artists.