Gothenburg Museum of Art

Why go

Late nineteenth-century Nordic art gives the collection a particular identity, with artists including Carl Larsson, Edvard Munch and Anders Zorn. The Fürstenberg Gallery offers a richly decorated setting for that encounter. Wider holdings extend from older European painting to contemporary work, so you can make a focused selection rather than attempt everything.

What to look for

• The Fürstenberg Gallery has a richly decorated interior.
• Yellow brick gives the museum’s monumental façade its local character.

The full story

The museum building was created for Gothenburg’s international exhibition in 1923, part of the city’s tercentenary celebrations. Architect Sigfrid Ericson gave it a monumental neoclassical form, placing it at the end of Kungsportsavenyn. From Götaplatsen, the building reads as an architectural conclusion to the avenue as well as a container for art. Its yellow brick ties that imposing form to a material widely used in Gothenburg. Inside, the Fürstenberg name points towards another part of the city’s cultural history: private collecting and patronage. Pontus and Göthilda Fürstenberg helped shape the artistic inheritance associated with the gallery. The Nordic works sit within a wider collection, rather than an isolated national story. Moving between those paintings and the museum’s broader holdings gives a sense of how Gothenburg’s collectors looked both towards Scandinavian artists and beyond the region.

Useful to know

• Start with the Nordic collection if you want the museum’s most destination-specific focus.

Your next visit

Estimated · Declared scenario and planning estimates; no live opening, weather, queue or booking service.