CINCINNATI, OH.- The Taft Museum of Art presents The Scandinavian Home: Landscape and Lore, an exhibition that brings one of the most extraordinary private collections of Scandinavian art in North America into public view for the first time. Organized by The Frick Pittsburgh and on display at the Taft Museum of Art from June 13 through September 20, 2026, the exhibition invites visitors to explore how ideas of home, landscape, and national identity shaped Nordic art and material culture from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
The Scandinavian Home spans a remarkable range of media, including painting, furniture, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and works on paper, highlighting approximately 75 works from the private collection of Pennsylvania-based collectors David and Susan Werner. Together, these objects illuminate the period from 1880 to 1920, a time of profound cultural transformation across Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
The exhibition was developed by consulting curators Patricia G. Berman, PhD, and Michelle Facos, PhD, and organized by Dawn R. Brean, Chief Curator and Director of Collections at The Frick Pittsburgh. Unlike most exhibitions of Scandinavian art—which typically focus either on fine art or decorative design—The Scandinavian Home integrates fine, folk, and decorative art unified through the concept of “home.”
“The works in the collection speak of ‘home’—home as domestic space, home as topography, and home as one of the most potent metaphors within nation-building efforts of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the individual dwelling as the microcosm of the nation,” write consulting curators Patricia G. Berman and Michelle Facos in the exhibition’s catalog.
The exhibition traces how artists and makers embraced nature, folklore, and handcrafted traditions in response to industrialization and political change. Landscapes become expressions of national character; textiles and furniture embody shared values; and domestic interiors serve as sites where personal and collective identities intersect.
Among the exhibition’s highlights are rare tapestries and a carved wooden cabinet by Norwegian artist Gerhard Munthe, whose work blended National Romanticism with Art Nouveau. Visitors will also encounter exquisite Finnish ceramics by avant-garde artist Willy Finch, celebrated for their rustic materials and sophisticated designs, as well as spectacular paintings by Hilma af Klint, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and Gustav Fjaestad depicting subjects drawn from spirituality, the imagination, and the natural world.
Also featured are functional objects—textiles, metalwork, and wooden implements—created by highly skilled, often anonymous craft artists. These works underscore the exhibition’s central premise: that fine art and everyday objects together shaped cultural identity and aesthetic ideals.
The Scandinavian Home finds a particularly meaningful setting at the Taft Museum of Art, housed in a 200-year-old historic home once occupied by Charles and Anna Taft, among others. Like the Werner collection, the Tafts’ own collecting interests reflected the tastes and values of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and embraced a wide range of media.
“The Taft Museum of Art’s historic house offers a powerful parallel to the themes in the exhibition,” says Ann Glasscock, installing curator at the Taft. “Much like The Scandinavian Home, the Taft reflects a moment in time when art, design, and domestic space were deeply intertwined. We hope this exhibition sparks meaningful conversations and encourages guests to reflect on their own understanding of what ‘home’ means.”
A fully illustrated exhibition catalog accompanies The Scandinavian Home, featuring thematic essays that provide historical context, explore the role of myth and history in nation-building, and examine the embrace of youth as a metaphor for cultural renewal. The publication also includes an in-depth interview with collectors David and Susan Werner.
