Isaac Grünewald

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Isaac Hirsche Grünewald (September 2, 1889 - May 22, 1946) was a Jewish Expressionist painter born in Stockholm. Having studied at a Swedish art school, at age nineteen Grünewald traveled to Paris to study under Henri Matisse. In 1909 he gained recognition in his homeland when he exhibited his work at Halldins konsthandel. He met Fauvist painter Sigrid Hjertén, who had studied at the College of Crafts and Design in Stockholm, and encouraged her to return with him to study in Paris. Married in 1911, they became part of a group of Scandinavian artists known as "De Unga" (The Young Ones).

Grünewald and Hjertén regularly exhibited together at home and abroad and art historians now often cite them as being responsible for introducing modernism to Sweden. At a time in history when anti-Semitism was widespread and women in art were frowned upon, although widely known they were never fully accepted by the artistic community of the day and their works were often the subject of ridicule. Partly as a result of this, Isaac Grünewald had to supplement his income creating stage designs for the Royal Dramatic Theatre and the Swedish Royal Opera. He decorated the walls and ceiling of an auditorium (since renamed Grünewald Hall) at the Stockholm Concert Hall, site of the Nobel Prize ceremony. The author of numerous essays on art, with his 1918 exhibit at Stockholm's Liljevalchs Konsthall Isaac Grünewald published his manifesto on Expressionism and opened his own art school. During the Second World War Grünewald worked at the renowned Rörstrand porcelain factory.

His wife Sigrid Hjertén suffered from lifelong mental health problems frequently evidenced by anxiety and paranoia that resulted in her being hospitalized for extended periods in the 1930s. During the marriage the couple were frequently apart from each other for long periods and they separated permanently in 1937 and soon divorced. Isaac Grünewald remarried and in 1946 both he and his second wife were killed in an airplane crash. He is buried in Stockholm's Norra begravningsplatsen (Northern Cemetery). His 1912 self-portrait and his 1915 painting "The Singing Tree" appeared on Swedish postage stamps.

Today, institutions such as the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Ishoj, Denmark rank Grünewald and Hjertén among the 20th Century's most important Scandinavian artists.