Lejon (Lion)

A lioness guards the entrance to the Navets school. Among lions, it is the females that go out hunting for food to feed the entire pride. They sneak up on their prey so that they can attack them in an explosive spurt. But for most of the day, things are pretty calm and relaxing for them. Did you know that lions rest or sleep between 16 and 20 hours every day? So fitting then that this lion radiates a majestic calm as she stretches out like an Egyptian sphinx.

The sculpture was made by the artists Eva Lillan Kullgren and Dan Lekberg. Kullgren lived for a while in Närke and collaborated during this time with Lekberg on a number of projects, including an extensive artistic commission for Navet. The school was built in connection with the housing fair held in Örebro in 1992, and the artist duo was commissioned for the visual design of the school in collaboration with the school’s architect.

Kullgren was working during this period as both sculptor and painter. With assemblage and mixed media, she also moved freely between sculptural and pictorial expressions, with both abstract and figurative motifs. Lekberg, on the other hand, is a decided image creator. He works with sketches, often with animal studies.

It was Lekberg who came up with the idea for a lion sculpture, but Kullgren was responsible for the shape and the design. She also made other cast-iron sculptures for the school: spiral shapes that are affixed to the façade and depictions of motifs from Aesop’s Fables. For the latter, she created associated paintings retelling the fables. Lekberg was responsible for drawings and woodcuts for the school’s indoor environments. She had also just “discovered” mosaics at this time, and both artists created mosaics with animal subjects.