Born in 1931, Sven-Harry Karlsson formed a collection spanning more than a century of Swedish art, from Carl Fredrik Hill to Anders Zorn. In the mid-1960s, he started constructing a building in Vasaparken, Stockholm, to house his collection. Designed by architects Gert Wingårdh and Anna Höglund of Wingårdh Architects, the five-story building's façade is clad in a unique copper-aluminium-zinc alloy that does not darken when exposed to oxygen. Sven-Harry Art Museum, founded by Karlsson, opened in 2011 but is now owned and run by a foundation.
The museum houses an art gallery, a museum shop, a restaurant, and other businesses, as well as 18 apartments. The museum, located at the building’s top, is a replica of Karlsson’s former home in Lidingö, with interiors dating back to the 1770s. On the ground floor, the gallery exhibits work by artists such as Karin Mamma Andersson and Torsten Andersson. The museum director and CEO since 2026 is Vanessa Gandy.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nik Frost
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