Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art

Skissernas Museum, also known as the Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art, is an art museum in Lund, southern Sweden, dedicated to documenting and displaying the creative process behind monumental and public art. Founded in 1934 by Ragnar Josephson, professor of art history at Lund University, the institution holds approximately 30,000 works, making it the world's largest collection of sketches and preparatory material for public art. The museum's core mission, which remains central to its identity today, is to illuminate what Josephson called the "birth of the work of art" by tracing an artist's path from initial idea to finished monument.

The museum originated from an initiative by Georg Pauli, who in autumn 1933 delivered a lecture at the Skåne Art Museum in Lund calling for an immediate inventory of Sweden's monumental painting before it was too late. Ragnar Josephson responded by assigning his students to document public art in their hometowns during the Christmas holiday, using small stipends to purchase picture postcards. This modest image archive, filling several shoeboxes, formed the seed of the collection. The first substantial donation came from Prince Eugen of Sweden, who gave 19 sketches, followed by a large collection from Georg Pauli himself. By December 1934, the archive already contained 500 sketches, with growth continuing at several hundred per month. In 1936, a state subsidy was granted, and the collection mandate expanded beyond Sweden to all of Scandinavia, with non-Scandinavian works added in subsequent decades. The French collection was largely acquired during the 1960s. The institution became a public museum in 1941, and since 1979 it has operated as an independent unit of Lund University. A major renovation closed the museum from 2001 to 2005.

The collection encompasses roughly 30,000 sketches, models, and photographs in diverse materials and techniques, representing approximately one thousand artists from thirty countries. The museum's focus on public art, which Josephson termed "monumental sculpture," "monumental painting," or "decorative art," was deliberate: such works require extensive preparatory study, making them ideal for documenting creative process. The permanent exhibition is organized geographically across two floors. The ground floor houses the Swedish, International, Mexican, and Sculpture halls; the upper floor contains Nordic works and hosts temporary exhibitions. This geographical arrangement allows visitors to compare approaches to public art across cultures while maintaining the museum's central emphasis on artistic genesis rather than finished product.

The Swedish Hall features works by Sigrid Hjertén and Isaac Grünewald. The International Hall contains sketches by Fernand Léger, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, and cartons by Henri Matisse. The Mexican Hall holds works by David Alfaro Siqueiros, Juan O'Gorman, and Rufino Tamayo. The Sculpture Hall is dominated by the plaster model Hill Arches by Henry Moore, with additional works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Arnaldo Pomodoro, and Claes Oldenburg. The Nordic halls present works by Kirsten Ortwed, Dagfin Werenskiold, and Leifur Breidfjörd. Other represented artists include Jean Dubuffet, José Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera.

The museum's architecture reflects its evolving history. The first location, opened in 1941, was an 1882 gymnasium formerly part of a teachers' seminary, situated at the corner of Sölvegatan and Finngatan near the university library; this space is now the International Hall. In 1944, Lund architect Hans Westman was commissioned to design a major extension, but wartime building permit restrictions prevented construction. Instead, Josephson acquired nine military barracks from a nearby training ground, which Westman integrated with the existing building in 1949. A decade later, Westman added what became the Swedish Hall, with a raw concrete facade on the Finngatan side where the wood plank patterns from casting remain visible. This hall features a high ceiling and an elevated walkway allowing unusual overhead perspectives of large-scale designs. A 1988 extension by Karl Koistinen and Göran Hellborg expanded the museum toward Sölvegatan. The 2001-2005 renovation, designed by Johan Celsing in collaboration with landscape architect Birre Skoglund, replaced the provisional barracks with a large hall and window gallery facing the sculpture park, winning the competition under the title "Vid park" (By the Park). The sculpture garden extends into the adjacent Helgonabacken park, containing approximately twenty freestanding sculptures and designs near the entrance and along the university library side, with additional relief studies on the museum's north side by artists including Richard Nonas, Olle Bærtling, Stig Blomberg, and Arne Jones.

Skissernas Museum is located in Lund Municipality in southern Sweden, affiliated with Lund University. The museum reopened in March 2005 following its four-year closure for renovation. It maintains an official website at skissernasmuseum.se, available in both Swedish and English. The institution continues its dual function as a public museum with permanent and temporary exhibitions, and as a non-public archive serving research purposes. Annual temporary exhibitions complement the permanent geographical display, sustaining Josephson's original vision of valuing preparatory work as worthy of preservation and study in its own right.