Millesgården

3 March 2019

Two months ago, I got an email from Kulturkompis - translated as culture-friend (an organisation that brings 4 people - 2 foreigners and 2 Swedes - together to appreciate Sweden's culture while forming a friendship) that I belong to a group. Now, this organisation will match 4 people together with similar interests. A friend of mine recommended me to join this because she got to meet other people while enjoying activities. We meet 4 times in the course of 6 months at their selected culture partners. The group leader emailed us and suggested places for us to meet. For our first meetup, we gathered at Millesgården today.

Millesgården is the residence of Carl Milles, a Swedish sculpture who donated his house (looks like a mansion) to the Swedish people. This museum got an award of being Sweden's favourite museum in 2019. It is so odd because 2019 has just started. Anyway, this place is worth a visit and it costs SEK150 for a visit. 

This place is not located in the city and it took me about 1 hour to get here. It is located in the island of Lidingö. I have not heard of this place before until the organiser suggested it. 

There was an art exhibition on expressionism where the paintings are expressive - paintings with strong colours and images. I did enjoy this exhibition and they are really different from the ones I see in National Museum. It was a comprehensive exhibition with paintings and prints by, among others, Emil Nolde, Otto Mueller and Max Pechstein.

Now, we continue our tour to see Carl Milles' residence.

We visited the residence of Carl Milles and his sculptured-filled garden. The garden is gorgeous despite the snow. It snowed again after 2 snow-less weeks. 0 degrees today. Carl Milles built and decorated his house to resemble Italy - in his words, he wanted to bring Italy here. His courtyard has huge columns that reminded me of Rome. 

There was a small house for the housekeeper to live in. Her name was Anne and she lived here until 1986. We were only allowed to see the living room and dining room.

Sculpture of 2 boys sucking from a wolf comes from a Rome mythology. One of the boys, Rumulus is the founder of Rome. 

We make our way to Carl Milles' house and we walked through the huge garden. Is there a word to describe an area larger than a garden? This place will look eerie for me when it is dark. The huge columns, the sculptures and the trees around it. 

The first place that we stepped inside is the music room which is of course filled with sculptures, paintings and an old organ.

Check out the tiled floor.

While walking through the house, we could see the garden and this is how pretty it looks.

I was very surprised to see the size of their kitchen which was very tiny and has space for 2 chairs and an oak table.

Definitely a must-go!