STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.- What do Astrid Lindgren's Emil and Alf Prøysen's Mrs. Pepperpot have in common? An obvious answer is the artist Björn Berg. All three of them are being highlighted at the Nationalmuseum during the autumn and winter. A large exhibition shows brightly coloured watercolours along side ink drawings and sketches for the popular illustrations for the children's books. Some 200 works are being shown in playful surroundings with a design based on well-known episodes and scenes from the visual worlds of the two characters.

The exhibition builds on various themes that create new contexts and encounters with the original illustrations from the various books. Thus it does not present the illustrations book by book in chronological order. An important aspect has been to demonstrate the process which gave rise to the illustrations. That is to say, how Björn Berg came upon the various characters and the surroundings in which they live. We can see how Emil developed from the anonymous, fair-haired little boy who first caused Astrid Lindgren to get into contact with the artist Björn Berg, to the richly nuanced figure of the Emil whom we are familiar with today. The exhibition shows how Mrs. Pepperpot has been depicted in various editions of the book, both in Sweden and in other countries. The early drawings showed Mrs. Pepperpot using line drawings and hatched shading in a manner that suited the limitations of the printing techniques of the time. At a later stage Mrs. Pepperpot has become more relaxed with a rounder head and less angular forms. In the editions of the 1970s she appears in colour in Björn Berg's highly fluent water-colour illustrations.

The exhibition also seeks to present other aspects of Björn Berg's art in the form of prints and drawings from various periods of his life. His journeys round the world as an illustrator for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter and his documentation of Swedish industrial workers in the magazine Industria have a common feature. They both show his interest in movement.

In connection with the exhibition, the museum has published a 48-page children's book under its own imprint entitled Emil möter teskedsgumman. En vandring i Björn Bergs bildvärld. In many respects this follows the concept on which the exhibition is built. The book is richly illustrated with pictures by Björn Berg and it has an educational slant as readers are asked, in a series of questions, to reflect on various relevant matters. For the adult reader the book includes a brief biographical treatment of Björn Berg's art.

Curators: Marika Bogren mbn@nationalmuseum.se and
Ulf Cederlöf ucf@nationalmuseum.se