Helga Stenhammar was also, like her husband, an artist. She studied with Carl Larsson at Valand’s School of Painting in Gothenburg, later continuing her studies at Academie Calarossi in Paris and The Acadamy of Art in Florence. Throughout her artistic career, she focused primarily on drawings and watercolours.
Helga and Wilhem married on the 26th of November 1896, in Gothenburg. The couple had three children - Claes Göran, Ove and Hillevi - two of whom also worked within the arts later in life, Claes Göran as an opera singer and Hillevi as a singer. Helga and Wilhelm’s relationship can be seen reproduced in the rich correspondence the couple shared throughout the years. In the letters, we can follow the longing they felt for each other when Wilhem worked abroad, and the creativity which is characteristic of them both, in their own and each other’s work. Also visible is the turmoil after Wilhelm’s affair with Norwegian singer Cally Monrad, which nearly came to destroy their marriage. In a letter from Wilhelm to Helga, from April 1904, he writes:
“There has been so much recently which dragged us towards the mire. My own misunderstandings, other people’s misunderstandings, a thousand shabby thoughts, my own thoughts, other people’s thoughts, hasty words, uncontrollable feelings (…) I said that I’m playing a game with high stakes. That isn’t true. I’m not playing any game. This is no sport. I’m facing the largest gravity of my life. But if we use the image of life as a game of chance, then it is worth betting everything on it.”
As with many other women, Helga’s art later came second to her family life. Her grandson Jan Lindhe explained: “Grandmother chose to stand in the shadow of her husband, to invest in his career, despite the fact that she herself was a talented artist.”
Helga Stenhammar’s work is a part of the collection of Gothenburg Art Museum.