The Queen of lake Mälar

1921

Having still not digested the dispute with Swedish critics two years before, Dick Beer is encouraged by his friends to enter a frescos competition intended for the brand new Stockholm City Hall (made in red brick and partly inspired by a Venice Renaissance palace). His proposals painted in gouache (“the Queen of lake Mälar” among others) are refused but in 1973 professor Sten Karling describes these works as an important artistic step: “With a course similar to the one taken by Dunoyer de Segonzac, and where it is also apparent that Dick Beer retained something definitive from his cubist studies, the artist’s fresco proposals for the City Hall display a powerful originality, with imposing sculptural figures sitting with the map of the city in the background.” In reality the artist had already begun a collaboration with the City Hall, but in full execution he his reported to have a violent quarrel with the famous chief architect Ragnar Östberg, slams the door and travels to Menton!