Randi Fisher - svensk modernist

Sammanfattning: The main subject of this thesis is the art of Swedish artist Randi Fisher (1920-1997). She was educated at Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and mainly worked as a painter in many techniques. Textile art and public art cought her interest, and, from 1960 and onwards, stained glass painting. Even though the strong focus on one single artist may underline a biographical theme, the aim is to shed light on her contemporaries as well - the most well-known beeing Olle Bonniér, Lage Lindell, Pierre Olofsson, Karl Axel Pehrson and Lennart Rodhe. These artists are, in Swedish art history, usually referred to as "The Men of 1947" (the year of their break-through). Their female counterpart, Randi Fisher (part-taker in the famous first exhibition "Ung konst" in 1947), is seldom mentioned. Using a method suggested by British art historians Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker, the aim is (on the one hand) to present new facts about an earlier "unknown" female artist and her art and, (on the other hand) to critically discuss and deconstruct art history itself, its discourses, categories, values, its implicit or explicit ideologies, hierarchies and canonizing processes. By applying French cultural sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's theories and methods in combination with gender theory, it is possible to fruitfully examine Randi Fisher's position in the Swedish art field. Thus not only her art, but also her place in the art field and role as an artist becomes an important point of departure in the analysis. In Bourdieu's words, both her cultural, social and economic capital were high and resulted in a strong position: success as a painter, a lot of exhibitions, public commissions. Both Nationalmuseum, and later Moderna Museet in Stockholm bought her works. The sociological perspective is also underlined in an examination of art critics' statements about Fisher's art in newspapers during the 1940s and 1950s respectively. In order to offer a wide perspective on Fisher's art, both early self-portraits and later abstract and nonfigurative paintings and designs for book-covers, as well as textiles and stained glass paintings are presented and analyzed. Another important trope is her strong engagement in spiritual, political and ideological quesions, and in what ways these subjects also came to influence Randi Fisher's art.