3x Eriksson

6 June – 19 september 2019

The idea for this exhibition, about and involving three artists/cultural workers from the same family, dates back 3-4 years. That three people from the same family work with art or some other form of culture are nothing unusual, but there is, in most cases, a cultural tradition in the family and a cultural setting. However, here it is not the case, this is a family from a village, Södra Harads, where there were no cultural offerings apart from the occasional talk by a teacher in adult education, and in the home, there was no art. Apart from a set of encyclopedias, there were few books.

Despite this meager cultural background, the mother and two sons became established artists, and one of them was also an author. 

More information can be found in the Folder (available only in Swedish).

Participating artists

Perhaps Sonja Eriksson was not socially mobile, but culturally, from being a hardworking village woman to a highly appreciated and renowned artist. Her art is not only a valuable account of rural life in the past in Norrbotten but also about her own life.

Jan Anders Eriksson, often called Jatte, was born in 1944, the youngest sibling. He has described his childhood in Södra Harads as a carefree and exciting setting with a kind father, Sigurd. When Jatte was in his late teens, Sigurd often gave him cash and was quite willing to lend him the car. Jatte adds that it was not an artistic home but still creative, even though his parents did not encourage the children to go in for artistic activities. Any cultural panorama he and his siblings gained was from reading newspapers and magazines.

Larserik Eriks­son was born in 1932 in Södra Harads, the eldest of three siblings. As was common in the villages, there were no cultural offerings apart from the occasional talk by a teacher in adult education. In the home, there was no art, and apart from a set of encyclopedias, there were few books. However, his parents ran a village store, and the siblings read the many publications on sale as a source of knowledge gathering and inspiration for writing and drawing.