MARIA LÖWSTÄDT
b. 1854, Stockholm, Sweden
d. 1932, Stockholm, Sweden
WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS | PUBLICATIONS
SELECTED WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
Maria Carolina Löwstädt received her training as a physiotherapist at the Royal Central Gymnastics Institute (Kungliga Gymnastiska Centralinstitutet) in Stockholm, which she completed together with her friend Axelina Hammarstrand in 1883. In 1890 she met Huldine Beamish (1836-1892), the founder of the Edelweiss Society. She took part in spiritualist séances with her and soon began to draw automatically. Her first mediumistic drawings are preserved in a drawing book of Huldine Beamish. Maria Löwstädt, who remained unmarried, was not only one of the earliest members of the Edelweiss Society, as an initiate she belonged to its innermost circle and remained loyal to the society until her death and was one of the most important players in the association. Externally, she served the society as secretary for many years.
Löwstädt distinguished herself above all through her drawing mediumship. Well over 200 of her drawings have been preserved. Almost all of them are part of the CoMA. In them, the world view of the Edelweiss Society, the spiritual tasks of the core members, as well as prophecies and visions unfold as a finely chiseled metaphorical universe.
Maria Löwstädt's father, Carl Rudolf Löwstädt (1820-1905), had built up a considerable fortune as a tailor with his store in Stockholm's Old Town, which enabled him to be elected to the city council in 1867. He was already politically active before that and was friends with the Christian communist Per Götrek (1798-1876). Together with him, he published the pamphlet Om proletariatet och dess befrielse genom den sanna kommunismen ("On the proletariat and its liberation through true communism") in 1847. Rudolf Löwstädt became one of the leading figures in the young Swedish labor movement.
Maria Löwstädt's two sisters, Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick (1855-1932) and Eva Löwstädt-Åström (1864-1942), were both artists. They seem to have inherited their talent from their grandfather, Carl Theodor Löwstädt (1789-1829), who moved to Stockholm from Stralsund in what was then Swedish Pomerania at an early age. He worked as a draughtsman and graphic artist, drawing not only historical portraits but also witty and wicked caricatures.
EXHIBITIONS
2021 Eine Zeitreise zur Quelle der Inspiration (werksdialog #4: Monica von Rosen – Hilma af Klint) [A journey through time to the source of inspiration], Villa Blunk, Wriezen, Germany, September 12. – November 21, 2021
2021 Beyond Belief. Haus Kunst Mitte, Berlin, Germany, September 18 – November 21, 2021
2020 Hilma af Klint und das wilde Zeichnen. [Hilma af Klint and the wild drawing.] Grisebach, Berlin, Germany, March 17 – April 11, 2020
PUBLICATIONS
Blunk, Steffen (ed.), Eine Zeitreise zur Quelle der Inspiration. Werksdialog #4: Monica von Rosen – Hilma af Klint. Wriezen: Villa Blunk, 2021.
