Bågspännande Kentaur (The Archer Centaur)

In Slottsparken, you will find The Archer Centaur, a mythological creature in bronze. Half-human, half-horse, the archer rears ups, stretching his bow toward the sky. Perhaps the bow is pointing toward the constellation Centaurus?

The sculpture was made by artist Sigrid Fridman (1879–1963), who was born in Haparanda, studied to be a physiotherapist in Stockholm, and then moved to London, where she began sculpting. Her art took her to Paris, where she studied under Antoine Bourdelle, who in turn studied under Auguste Rodin. Fridman’s work was likely inspired by Bourdelle’s Hercules the Archer (1909).

The Archer Centaur was first sculpted in plaster in 1927, cast in bronze in 1929 and placed in Örebro in 1965. It is thus an earlier work than the larger and more monumental Centaur that has been standing since 1939 on the hill of the Stockholm Observatory.

In the 1948 book Sigrid Fridman – och andra konstnärer. En krigskrönika (Sigrid Fridman – And Other Artists. A War Chronicle) written by Klara Johansson, with whom Fridman was romantically involved, you can read about the creation of the Centaur, which involved a decade-long struggle against a male-dominated art scene.

Was the resistance due to the sculpture’s design or the wild and unbridled motif? Because Fridman was one of few women artists at the time who made public art? Or because she was openly homosexual and defied the norms of the time?

The Archer Centaur is today Sigrid Fridman’s most well-known work. Art arouses feelings and our view of art changes over time. What do you see in The Archer Centaur?