Research project Nell Walden, Der Sturm, and the Collaborative Cultures of Modern Art

The results of the project are published in the monograph Nell Walden, Der Sturm and the Collaborative Cultures of Modern Art (Routledge, 2021). The book introduces Walden as an ardent collector of modernist and indigenous art and critically contextualises her own art production in relation to gendered ideas on abstraction and decoration. Visual analyses highlight how she collaborated with artists and experimental photographers during the Weimar era. Finally, the book provides an analysis of Walden’s continuing collaborative work as Der Sturm’s archivist and historiographer after her voluntary exile from Germany to Switzerland in the 1930s and thus highlights the importance of women’s supportive labour for the canonisation and institutionalisation of modern art in museums and archives.

The project has been generously supported by Landskrona museum, Åke Wibergs Stiftelse, Magn. Bergvalls Stiftelse, and Stiftelsen Längmanska Kulturfonden.