A major exhibition dedicated to the 18th-century Swedish neoclassical sculptor and draughtsman Johan Tobias Sergel is opening in two parts. 'Fantasy and Reality' premieres at Stockholm's Nationalmuseum this month, featuring nearly 400 works, before traveling to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York in the autumn for the artist's first US monographic show.
The exhibition aims to introduce Sergel's diverse and often overlooked work to a broader international audience. It highlights his formal neoclassical sculptures alongside his more private, grotesque, and erotic drawings, positioning him as a key but complex figure bridging Rococo, Neoclassicism, and proto-Romanticism, and revealing the vibrant artistic networks of 18th-century Rome.