Mario Naves reviews Independent Visions: Helene Schjerfbeck and Her Contemporaries at Scandinavia House, New York, on view through October 3, 2017.

Naves writes: “… an uncompromising, if at times highly affected, talent. At her best, Schjerfbeck holds vulnerability and measure in wiry equilibrium… The innovations of early Modernism liberated these painters [Schjerfbeck, Sigrid Schauman, Ellen Thesleff, and Elga Sesemann] in ways that retain a modicum of edge, of newness and excitement.”