Swedish National Portrait Gallery: 2025 Portrait of Honour to Depict Swimmer Sarah Sjöström

The 2025 Portrait of Honour will depict the swimmer Sarah Sjöström. The photograph, captured by Magnus Ragnvid, is scheduled to be unveiled at Gripsholm Castle on 23 November. Following its unveiling, the work will become part of the permanent collection at the Swedish National Portrait Gallery.

Sarah Sjöström has been recognized as one of the world’s top swimmers for over fifteen years. She achieved her first major success at the age of fourteen in 2008 with a European Championship gold medal. Since then, she has amassed 98 medals in international competitions, a total reported to be more than any other European swimmer has ever achieved. Her specialities are freestyle and butterfly, and she excels in short-distance events. Sjöström has set numerous world records and currently holds three in freestyle and butterfly. Her most recent victories were in the 50 and 100-metre freestyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The portrait was taken shortly before Sjöström gave birth to her first child in August of this year. The image captures a “very pregnant world-class swimmer in profile”. In the photograph, she is wearing a dress designed by Lars Wallin. The draped fabric of the garment is noted as being “reminiscent of the draped fabric familiar from sculptures of Greek and Roman gods”. The dress may also “evoke an image of running water”.

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Photographer Magnus Ragnvid has been based in Stockholm since the mid-1990s, while also working periodically in Berlin, Copenhagen, and London. His professional portfolio is diverse, including portraits, photos for cookery books, fashion features, and advertising. More recently, Ragnvid has also been working with moving images. His photographs have been presented in numerous exhibitions. An exhibition titled Familiar Face—which focused on women who have influenced him—was presented in his hometown of Klippan in 2020.

The Swedish National Portrait Gallery, located at Gripsholm Castle, is the world’s oldest national portrait gallery. Founded in 1822, it is managed by Nationalmuseum. Since 1959, new works have been added to the collection annually, including a Portrait of Honour depicting a prominent Swede. This specific portrait is donated to the collection by the Gripsholm Association. The selection of the subject and artist is made in collaboration with Nationalmuseum. The Gripsholm Association, created in 1937, operates with the purpose of supporting the “preservation and enhancement” of Gripsholm Castle and its collections.

The full portrait collection contains over 5,000 portraits of Swedish people. Previous recipients of the Portrait of Honour include Benny Andersson, Alice Babs, Ingmar Bergman, Hédi Fried, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Max Martin, Alva Myrdal, Birgit Nilsson, and Svante Pääbo. Both Gripsholm Castle and the Swedish National Portrait Gallery are part of the government’s Cultural Canon for Sweden, which was presented earlier this autumn.

Nationalmuseum is Sweden’s museum of art and design. Its collections comprise some 700,000 objects, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, and graphic art from the 16th century up to the beginning of the 20th century, as well as a collection of applied art and design up to the present day. Nationalmuseum is a government authority tasked with preserving cultural heritage and promoting art, interest in art, and knowledge of art.

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