Madeleine Pyk was born in 1934 in Stockholm and grew up in Södermalm, overlooking the Slussen neighbourhood. There she used to sit and look out over the view outside her window of the cityscape, the people and the water. Her summers were spent with the family out at Skägga, outside Stockholm, with animals, nature and play.
The animals, nature, water, birds and old buildings that populated her childhood began to shape the fantasy world that is reflected in the artist's work. Today, the places, objects and creatures – both the real ones and imaginary ones – function as models for her art, contributing to the poetic narrative of her paintings. Her imaginative and colourful work distinguishes Pyk as a Naïve artist.
Naïvism as an art style is based on viewing the world through the eyes of a child. Naïve artists are aware of the conventions of 'fine art', but choose not to use them. And Madeleine Pyk is a trained artist who paints in a style that is perceived as childish and imaginative, seeing her works as stories about memories and experiences that came from both childhood and later encounters with people.
In every Swedish home there is a kitchen, a bathroom and a painting by Madeleine Pyk.
In her work, there is humour and playfulness, but also seriousness and tenderness. As a young girl, Madeleine suffered from mental illness that pushed her to see a psychologist in Switzerland, who recommended drawing her experiences as part of the therapeutical process. Even in the darkest times, she claims to have made drawings full of humour, calling herself an optimist since birth.
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Play and imagination have been present since childhood – but so has art. Madeleine's aunt Margit, grandmother Rosa and her father Ludvig were themselves artists, who encouraged her to apply to art school to continue developing her artistry.
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Between 1951 and 1955 Madeleine Pyk studied at Konstfack in Stockholm, and continued her artistic education at the Academy of Fine Arts, from 1963-1967. She debuted in 1956 with an exhibition at Lilla Paviljongen in Stockholm, a place that was both an antiquarian, an art salon and a literary cafe where several visual artists and poets have had their first exhibitions between 1939 and 1980. In 1972 she was named 'Sweden's most diligent painter' by the head of culture at SvD, Stig Johansson. Today, she is one of Sweden's most popular artists. "In every Swedish home there is a kitchen, a bathroom and a painting by Madeleine Pyk," playwright Kristina Lugn once said.
Her pictures are characterised, in addition to the naïve style, by strong colours, idyllic landscape scenes, images of different seasons with warm summer colours and icy winter landscapes – sometimes populated by people and felines. Over the years, the tiger has become a signature in Pyk's imaginative works and reappears both in the company of other figures and in individual portraits.
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Another source of inspiration is her grandfather, a man of adventure, constantly on the move. Traveling has become an important part of Pyk's life. As a young woman, she spent the summers in Rome and her winters in Nice, France with her life partner Kri Bohm. France has played an important role in Pyk's art and French influences are evident in her work. But study trips to Brazil and countries around Africa have also inspired the artist's visual language over the years, and exotic environments are not uncommon. Her art, in turn, has inspired people around the world, as she has exhibited in places such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris and Botswana.
Pyk has worked with several forms of visual art over the years. In the 1960s, Pyk traveled around the world with brushes and a camera in her luggage, and both painted pictures in oil and photographed. In 2016, her photographs were exhibited together with paintings in a retrospective at Krapperup's art gallery, in the exhibition titled With Brush and Pentax through Europe. The exhibition contained paintings and photographs from 1959 until today.
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With humour and playfulness, Madeleine Pyk continues to paint her colourful fantasies. Today she lives and works in Skillinge, Sweden.
Jacques Werup and Barbro Lindgren have had books illustrated by Madeleine Pyk, and she herself has written books, such as Marmorbadaren in 1978. Anja Notini published in 1990 the book Jag leker att jag liver about the artist. In 1987 came the film Boxas med molnen by Kerstin Odhenkrans, also about Pyk.
Today, Madeleine Pyk is represented at the Moderna Museet, in the collections of the city of Stockholm, the Norrköping Museum, the Museum in Västerås, the Museum in Umeå and the Museum in Östersund. In 2008, she was awarded the Illis Quorum, a royal medal awarded by the government to reward efforts for cultural, scientific and other public benefit purposes. Her works sell for tens of thousands on the auction market, with her current record at £37,944 for Krocket (2013).
