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Northern Lights

Friday, August 1, 2025–Monday, January 12, 2026

Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863–1944) Train Smoke, 1900. Oil on canvas. 33 1/8 x 43 3/8 in. (84 x 110 cm). Munchmuseet, Oslo. © 2025  Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building
Floor 3

Northern Lights features seventy-one landscape paintings by artists from Scandinavia and Canada created between 1880 and 1930, among them masterpieces by Edvard Munch and Hilma af Klint. The boreal forest—a global belt of evergreen forests that hugs the Arctic Circle—was a shared source of inspiration for a new kind of modernist painting. The Northern region’s seemingly boundless expanses of forest, the radiant light of endless summer days, the long winter nights, and natural phenomena such as the aurora borealis gave rise to a specifically Nordic form of modern painting whose appeal and fascination endures to this day. In the works on view, the boreal forest, one of Earth’s largest primeval forests, takes on the quality of a spiritual landscape. 

Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863–1944). Starry Night, 1922–24. Oil on canvas. 55 1/8 x 46 7/8 inches (140 x 119 cm). Munchmuseet, Oslo. © 2025  Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. 

Tom Thomson (Canadian, 1877–1917). Snow in October, 1916–1917. Oil on canvas. 32 5/16 x 34 9/16 inches (82.1 x 88 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Bequest of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, 1944. Photo: NGC

Tom Thomson (Canadian, 1877–1917). Pine Island, Georgian Bay, 1914–16. Oil on canvas. 60 5/16 x 50 1/4 inches (153.2 x 128 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Bequest of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, 1944. Photo: NGC

Lawren Stewart Harris (Canadian, 1885–1970). Lake Superior, ca. 1923. Oil on canvas. 44 x 50 in (112 x 127 cm). The Thomson Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. © Family of Lawren S. Harris. Photo: AGO

Prins Eugene (Swedish, 1865–1947), Clear Night after the Rain, 1904. Oil on canvas. 39 3/8 x 63 inches (100 x 160 cm). Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm. Public Domain. Photo: Lars Engelhardt, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde

Framed painting of a body of water and the northern lights at night
Anna Katarina Boberg (Swedish, 1864–1935). Northern Lights. Study from North Norway, no date. Oil on canvas. 37 3/8 x 29 1/2 inches (97 x 75 cm). Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Bequest 1946 Ferdinand and Anna Boberg. Public Domain. Photo: Anna Danielsson / Nationalmuseum

Northern Lights traces the development of Nordic landscape painting in modern art through selected works by Helmi Biese, Anna Boberg, Emily Carr, Prince Eugen, Gustaf Fjæstad, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Lawren Harris, Hilma af Klint, J.E.H. MacDonald, Edvard Munch, Harald Sohlberg, and Tom Thomson.

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s longstanding commitment to art from the Nordic region dates back to the Exhibition of Contemporary Scandinavian Art (1913), presented at the time through the patronage of the Kings of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The presentation of Northern Lights at the Buffalo AKG will feature archival materials from this historic show.

Northern Lights opens at Fondation Beyeler on January 26, 2025 in Basel, Switzerland and will open at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum on August 1.  



 

 

Northern Lights is organized by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo/New York, and the Fondation Beyeler, Richen/Basel. It is curated by Helga Christoffersen, Curator-at-Large and Curator of the Nordic Art and Culture Initiative, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and Ulf Küster, Senior Curator, Fondation Beyeler. 

 

Sponsor

Northern Lights is made possible by leadership support from the Northern Lights International Exhibition Committee:
 

NorthCape Wealth Management
Camilla & John Lindfors
Christine Standish & Christopher Wilk
 

The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation
Bareva Foundation/Claudia Steinfels
Charles W. Banta
Ben & Louisa Brown
Jan Petter Collier & Family
Maire & Carl Gustaf Ehrnrooth
David & Angela Feldman
Lars Förberg
Kristine Furuholmen
Alice & Jeremy Jacobs, Jr.
Nadja Laine
Øystein Moan Family
Helena & Gert W. Munthe                       
Oreck Family Foundation
Christine Sabuda & Christopher Bihary
Christian & Theresa Sinding
Stichting Pamina
Alexandra & Michael Storåkers
Anita & Poju Zabludowicz
 
Additional support provided by The Consulate General of Sweden with further in-kind support provided by Sotheby’s.
 
The Nordic Art and Culture Initiative is made possible by the leadership support of the Nordic Founding Patrons group. For more information on the Buffalo AKG Art Museum Nordic Art and Culture Initiative, click here.