BROR HJORTH. Sculpture, possibly model, “Näckens Polska”, patinated plaster, unsigned.

Height 20 cm.
Bror Hjorth as a gift to Helga, Älvkarleö bruk.
In the current genus since the 1960s.

The studio contains many sketches from the work on the six-metre-high bronze sculpture Näckens Polska. Bror Hjorth was commissioned for the sculpture in 1951 by Uppsala Municipality. It would take sixteen years before it came into place in front of the train station in Uppsalas. Many were outraged by the nettle's apparent nakedness and wrote submitters even before the sculpture was inaugurated. That the huldra also had no clothes was not considered as offensive. Perhaps the most erotic thing in the work, almost no one saw.

The motif comes from Swedish folk belief. Näcken is said to play so beautifully on his violin that his music can put the audience in a trance. At the top of a sunflower dance a couple enchanted by the polish of the water lily. Huldran's beauty can entice whoever she meets to follow her into the forest. The long green hair hides her hollow back.

In the studio you will also see traces of the work of the large sculpture in the form of a poured concrete slab in the floor and a balcony that was used to reach the top of the sculpture.