Mona Lodström

Born 1918 in Limhamn, Sweden

Studies:

Otte Skölds Art Academy, Stockholm Ollers Art Academy, Stockholm Académie Ranson, Paris

Travels:

Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Venezuela, Panama, England and Russia

Individual exhibitions:

1955, 1960, 1976 in Stockholm 1971 in Solna, 1955, 1960, 1974, 1977 in Göteborg

Participated in jury decided exhibitions in:

Sweden, France and Germany

Stipends:

Governments Work stipend 1973, 1974 City of Stockholm Cultural Stipend 1976 Government Artist Supplement 1978

Represented in the National Museum (Stockholm)

My earliest memories with my mother are from Herkulesgatan 30 in Klara, Stockholm, where we lived on the top floor (no elevator!) until I was 6. A few stone throws from the Grand Central Station, and another few from the City Hall. Mona had an old "Teddy jacket" that started to get worn at the cuffs. She scrapped it and sewed me a Teddy Bear from the material. Like most other Teddy Bears in Sweden, this one also got to be called "Nalle."

Nalle on the Net! His 53 years is beginning to show, he leaks sawdust...

Regretfully the fabric is now so old and brittle that my own kids would destroy him in no time. Throwing him away is not an option either. After all, he was my first friend, and my best friend for years.

Another memory from Klara is the sounds of the bells in the City Hall Tower (Stadshustornet) at noon every day. (Do this compare to the true cockney who must be raised within hearing distance of St. Mary's bells in London?!) At the time this play was broadcast live on the then nationwide and only radio channel in Sweden. I heard the bells on the radio a second before the direct sound arrived. One could hear tourists talk when the tower was open for visitors in the summer. The old street cars, line 2 and 5, were rattling over a bridge nearby and were clearly audible as well.

A radio receiver, practically identical to the one we had when I was 3 to 6 years old. Ours had three shiny metal ribs horizontally across the loudspeaker fabric.

I remember vividly hanging over the back of it, looking inside. Smelling the warm phenolic fumes that comes from all real radios. I saw the tuning capacitor, wondering what it was, saw the glow in the tubes, wondering why, saw the IF transformers, wondering what made the whole thing work. Now I know. I know it very well.

The innards of the radio. The red tubes are in the family of EF4 and similar.

Detail of the dial. I have "doctored" the green glow of the "Magic Eye" because it was too faint to come through.. Below it, a projected image of an index on a microfilm attached direct to the tuning capacitor, making it possible to log and later find a station on short wave. We can see the numbers 70 and 71 on a 0 - 100 dial. The log reading is 70.45 just here. Below is the trade name Marconi. It is an unusually good radio. A tuned RF amplifier stage makes it a halfway decent DX radio. The wavelengths are probably the ones from 1939. Was it the Cairo conference?

The dial itself has a mirror, reflecting light from behind onto the band in use, here a faint brighter line is visible to the left of the index in the center.

What do this have to do with my mother? Nothing, but early memories are early memories, and maybe one day I will put them on a page of their own. If they can interest anybody.

My mother did drafting for Dagens Nyheter, the leading daily newspaper. Their offices and presses were a block or two away. Sometimes my mother brought me with her to pick up or deliver a job. I was of course more interested in the Linotype machines and the printing presses! Got to meet Barbro Alving, "Bang" and other luminaries. Another one, also drawing for Dagen Nyheter, was our neighbor at the top floor. Birger Lundquist and his wife Kajsa. Her sister Nunne married photographer Irvin Penn and moved to New York.. Birger was one of the best draftsmen ever in Sweden. Illustrator of several books as well.

Dedication to my parents in the book "Eriksgata" illustrated by Birger Lundquist. 1950.

Anyhow, my mother turned to the non-figurative kind of art, as well as very life like botanic illustrations. Long ago I overcame the notion that one has to be able to see what a picture pictures! If it looks good, is it not good in itself? It is all too often one can see clearly what is pictured (crying children and clowns) on works that are not only worthless but awful as well. I even heard Susan Stamberg on NPR once interviewing a "Clown Manufacturer". She was so impressed of how many he could crank out a day. She should have known better. When I pointed out this in an e-mail to them, I got a generic letter in return, listing the colleges and universities the staff had attended. Is it a joke? I don't get it.

I have a few recent examples of the worst in the "business" (which is just what it is) if you care to visit the "Garbage Page" on this site.

Back to art: My mother has kindly given us several of her very beautiful quilts, that she no longer makes. No wonder, I would rather build a communications receiver from scratch, with tubes, than to try to sew all the little pieces together by hand! And to make it look good!

In 1948, we had moved to Åsögatan 211 in Stockholm. Beautiful view over the Stockholm harbor inlet and Fåfängan. One day my mother was making pancakes and either Jan or I called them pakor instead of pannkakor. Thus the "Pakorna" were born. Imaginary animals. My mother made a picture book for us children where there is a new Paka for each letter in the alphabet.

At the same time Tove Jansson came up with the Mumin Troll, admittedly stiff competition to the Pakorna! Mona never got a publisher interested enough to publish her book, so about ten years ago she issued them herself.

Cover to the book about the "Pakorna."

Cicorium intybus....... Adonis Veralis

Cypripedium.........Calceous Rosa canina

Gouache (13 x 16.5 cm)

Gouache (18 x 24 cm)

Copyright ã 1997 the Lodström family.

Mona has these pictures available as postcards for sale, as well as the booklets about the "Pakorna" (in Swedish). Contact her on +46 8 6787 941 phone/fax.

Monas maternal grandfather was the Swedish painter Hugo Salmson. I even found one of his paintings on the web. From some auction in London. If I understood it right, his brother ended up in France, building airplanes, and engines for them, during WWI. Thereafter they made cars.

Christina, "Tatta" and Hugo Salmson

Four generations. My grandmother Sandra, me, "Tatta" Salmson, and my mother Mona.

The Citroen........and........the Salmson logo

and a S4D 9CV (to the right) in good company with a Citroen B11 on the left.

I have had a few of the B11, and a DS21, but no Salmson!

A beautiful Salmson S4DA from 1936. I actually saw one just like it in Göteborg, and admired it for quite a while before I realized it was a Salmson!

Last Update: August 9, 1998