Exhibitions

Children's Water Reflections

14 November 2026 – 31 January 2027

The year 2025 was marked by water at the Halland art institutions, with exhibitions and programs under the common title Water Reflections – Halland 2025. In parallel, artists Lisa Burenius and Ana Carolina Fleming held eleven workshops for children and young people on the same theme.

The workshops have resulted in the traveling exhibition Children's Water Reflections, which will be presented at art institutions throughout Halland during 2026–2027. The works will then be passed on to the Swedish Children's Picture Archive in Eskilstuna.

All works are created by children, from three years old and up, as well as young people in two upper secondary school classes. Everyone has participated in a workshop at one of these locations: Hylte Public Library, Varberg Art Gallery, Kungsbacka Art Gallery, Halland Cultural History Museum, Tjolöholms Slott, Bonadsmuseum Unnaryd, Naturum Getterön, The Museum of Drawings, Halland Art Museum, Rian Design Museum and Mjellby Art Museum.

The exhibition is designed by Lisa Burenius and Ana Carolina Fleming and produced in collaboration with Art in Halland.

Ulla Wiggen – Passage

November 22nd 2025 – April 12th 2026

The exhibition presents the long-standing artistic career of artist Ulla Wiggen: from the early paintings of electronics in the 1960s to the recent depictions of human irises.

Wiggen approaches her subjects with calm realism, often using a subdued colour palette. Her career is marked by distinct yet surprising transitions from one subject to another. Many of her works also feature various kinds of passages, where the viewer’s gaze focuses inward on the depicted subject and then back outward again. The relationship between the inner and the outer – both materially and spiritually – is central to her artistry.

Since 1969, the human subject has been a reoccurring motif, which during the 2010s also includes detailed depictions of internal organs. These Intra paintings are at the same time hyperrealistic and completely fictional – in a surrealist spirit. In recent years, Wiggen has received much attention for her Iris paintings, which together with a selection of paintings of electronic circuits and components were exhibited at the Venice Biennial in 2022.

Ulla Wiggen is born in 1942 and lives and works in Stockholm. In 2023, she was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal, one of Sweden’s most prestigious art awards, in recognition of her life’s work.

The curatorial concept is developed by EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Passage was first shown at EMMA during the autumn of 2024 and then travelled on to Västerås Art Museum. 

The exhibition at EMMA was realised in collaboration with Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany, where an extensive retrospective titled Outside / Inside was shown during the spring and summer of 2024.

Coast, Sea & Water – The Halmstad Group with Friends

June 7th 2025 – April 12th 2026

The coast of Halland with its special light and landscape has left its mark on many paintings. In Coast, Sea & Water – The Halmstad Group with Friends we encounter the coastal landscape through the brushstrokes of the Halmstad Group – alongside other artists who were connected to the group in various ways.

During the 1940s and 1950s, several members of the Halmstad Group developed a distinctive style of landscape painting, which found its starting point in the immediate environment around Halmstad. They focused on the coastline and its specific light, but also the fishing community and stonemasonry present in the area. Things that the sea washes ashore and common objects – rusty anchors, iron chains, ropes and nails – were elevated from everyday life and filled with meaning and symbolism. Transience, hope, and melancholy are present through depictions of the shifting seasons and a coastal landscape in constant change.

The Collection

Ongoing

In our filing cabinet and smallest exhibition gallery, we display a selection of artworks and sketches from the collection. This may include shedding light on individual artists or on interpretations of specific artworks.

In 1980, Viveka Bosson (1930-2024) founded Mjällby konstgård (Mjällby Art Gallery). She had returned home to Halmstad after many years in France and at the 50th anniversary of the Halmstad Group the year before, the idea of ​​a museum came up. At her side were her father Erik Olson (1901-1986), Axel Olson (1899-1986), Waldemar Lorentzon (1899-1984), Sven Jonson (1902-1981) and Esaias Thorén (1901-1981). The last member, Stellan Mörner (1896-1979), had already passed away. Together they formed the Halmstad Group Foundation. In order to ensure good representation of the group's artistry, the foundation donated approximately 100 works that would form the basis of a first collection.

In the 1990s, Viveca Bosson donated Mjällby Art Gallery to the municipality of Halmstad. To clarify its mission, the name was changed to Mjellby Art Museum. Mjellby is the older spelling of the area where the museum resides.

A large number of donations and deposits of artworks have been added to the collection over the years. Today, Mjellby Art Museum's collection consists of approximately 1000 artworks. In addition to finished works, there are sketches, drawings and archival material. The majority of the works are by members of the Halmstad Group, but other artists are also represented.

In 2023, Mjellby Art Museum received a large deposit of works by artist Thea Ekström (1920–1988). She grew up in Söndrum outside of Halmstad, but worked primarily in Stockholm and internationally.

Eva Klasson – An Artist Unfolds

9 May – 25 Oct 2026

The artist and photographer Eva Klasson (b. 1947) achieved great international success during the 1970s. Mainly through close-up studies of her own body in the photographic series Le troisième angle (The Third Angle). Despite playing an important role in the renewal of art photography, Klasson has had a neglected place in art history. In this exhibition we follow her journey from Borås to Paris, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Well-known photographs are shown together with never-before-shown works, films and archival material.

The exhibition is based on extensive research by Lotta Granqvist, PhD in Art History at Stockholm University. She places Eva Klasson in an international context where clear connections are made to both performance art and the French body art scene where the human body was used as a means of expression.

The exhibition is curated by Lotta Granqvist in collaboration with Mjellby Art Museum.

French-Nordic Connections – The Legacy of Viveka Bosson

9 May 2026 – 4 Apr 2027

Viveka Bosson (1930–2024) dedicated her life to art. After many years as a researcher and critic, living in France, she founded Mjellby konstgård (later Mjellby Art Museum) in 1980. She was the daughter of the Halmstad Group's Erik Olson and had unique insight into the group's history and accomplishments.

Viveka's work and areas of interest were strongly influenced by her father's artistic life. The movements, ideas and people Erik encountered – in France, Sweden and Denmark – were studied and highlighted by Viveka throughout her professional life.

The exhibition presents a selection of works from Viveka Bosson's private art collection comprising of over 500 works, which since her death in 2024 has been partly deposited at Mjellby Art Museum. The collection consists of works by members of the Halmstad Group, but other Nordic artist colleagues are also represented, such as Franciska Clausen, Elsa Thoresen and Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (GAN). The collection also includes several works by French artists, including Sonia Delaunay, Amédée Ozenfant and Fernand Léger. The exhibition includes a generous loan from Skissernas Museum in Lund, where Viveka worked to build up the museum's French collection.

In light of Viveka's extensive work and commitments, the exhibition provides a comprehensive insight into the artistic connections that developed between France and the Nordic countries during the 20th century, in which Erik and later also Viveka herself, remained central figures.

Previous exhibitions

• Previous exhibitions (in Swedish)

• The Halmstad Group

At Mjellby Art museum you will always find shifting exhibitions of the Halmstad Group

• The Halmstad Group