Powerful Storytellers – Reading and Understanding Collections in Situ at Skokloster Castle & the Hallwyl Museum. A Country House and Townhouse Experience
Annika Williams, Curator, Hallwyl Museum, Stockholm

Abstract

Anyone who visits Skokloster and the Hallwyl museum is bound to find it a captivating experience. As historic house museums they form an integrated whole and may be approached from numerous angles. The painting collections are at the core of their narratives. What is the role of their art collection today? The houses were built to be visited and to speak to an audience: the owners wanted their paintings to be looked at. What did they seek to communicate through their art collection? This raises the broader question of how individual paintings relate to the collection and setting. In her lecture, Annika Williams will examine these topics and discuss the way the in situ experience helps us to understand, analyze, and read the historic house and its collections.

About Annika Williams

Annika Williams is curator of the Hallwyl Collection, at the Department of Collections and Research of the overarching organization The National Historical Museums. In this capacity she has curated many exhibitions at the Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm and at Skokloster Castle in Skokloster, Sweden.