In 1983, the spouses Karin and Jules Schyl donated a stock portfolio worth several million and a studio full of art to Malmö Konsthall. The idea was that everything would be converted into money to buy art for – ‘preferably avant-garde art’, as it said in the gift deed.
For a little more than a decade, the donors’ confidants, together with three art gallery managers, purchased over 150 works that today give a subjective, but still fairly representative picture of contemporary art at the end of the 20th century. The collection contains works by some of the foremost international artists, but also some of the best from the Nordic countries. The collection is a manifestation of its era, even with a Euro-American perspective at the time, with a few Japanese elements and a, perhaps just as typical of the time, skewed distribution in terms of female artists. Ten years ago the collection was transferred to the Malmö Art Museum and the idea was that this would strengthen the collections. But also contribute to speeding up the process of building a new and modern art museum in Malmö. After more than forty years, that idea is just as relevant today.
In RAVINEN, a selection from Schyl’s donation is shown.
