The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm is the Nordic region's largest art museum and one of the oldest of its kind in the world. One of the Museum's tasks is to acquire visual and applied art in order to enrich the collections and work towards achieving artistic and cultural renewal. Before the renovation of the museum building on Blasieholmen in 2013-18, an extensive acquisition campaign was launched to prepare for the re-opening with the aim of further enhancing the experience for the Museum's visitors. In this book, Magnus Olausson (b. 1956), the Museum's Director of Collections in 2011-2023, recounts the work on the campaign.
The book constitutes a thematic and chronological overview and contains analyses of the acquisitions in relation to the Nationalmuseum's historical collections.
It is a rich source of knowledge about them and is valuable for understanding the Museum during this period. Readers can follow the purchases until spring 2023. In addition, the book is a personal reflection, with insights from the international art world, which gives readers a background to the author's points of view during his tenure as Director of Collections.