Article in Skåne Magazine March 2007
Translated from text by Katarina Rolfssdotter-Jansson, Photo Karin Oddner
It was so cold that the tea was getting cold on the way from the thermos on the day when Anna Rochegova guided Lars Cederholm and two Tibetan monks through the ancient Russian monastery Troyetski Sergejvsky Passad not far from Moscow. This meeting was to change Anna’s life. Anna left her country and her well established life as an artist in Russia and years later she ended up in Skåne. Anna Rochegova was a graduate from the Surikov Art Academy in Moscow and the way ahead was open for Anna. The meeting with Lars Cederholm, also he a Buddhist, changed her life. First she came to join him in his home in Brooklyn and later to a wonderful early 19th century house in Maglehem where they built a studio for Anna. Anna wanted to show us her favorite landscape in Skåne. We left the beautiful house in Maglehem and drove a few kilometers through Ravlunda military exercise field. There, many years ago, a village by the name of Knäbäck existed where Lars spent his childhood. The village was levelled in the 1950s because the military needed to expand the field. Many painters and writers and poets came to Knäbäck in the summers. On the cost of Hanöbukten (the bay of Hanö) a very special light exists which has attracted artists to come here. Fifty years ago, the air was as ripe with the smell of oil and turpentine as it was from tar from boats and nets. Poets such as Stig Dagerman and Lillebror Söderlund lived at times in Knäbäck as well as Evert Taube, Anders Österlin and Anita Björk. In our days many artists have chosen to live in this area. Only in Maglehem, ten artists have made their home such as Curt Hillfon, Christer Wedman, Håkan Berg and Åsa Linsjö, neighbors to Anna and Lars. In the last years of Easter exhibitions (Konstrundan), thousands of people came through Anna’s studio. Anna has exhibitions not only in Skåne. Lately she had a solo show in Gothenburg and a two person show in New York and in the coming autumn she will be participating in in a group exhibition in Sjöbo Konsthall.
“ I am painting in Malmö and in Maglehem but mostly I like to work in my studio in Maglehem because of the special quality of light. I love the coastline when the shadows fall from the trees into the sea. Another favorite place is the church in S:t Olof.”
Now Anna is painting the misty landscape. The sheep appear and disappear in and out of the mist, the waves are lapping calmly against the beach. The landscape painters are relatively few in today’s Sweden. Anna is one of the few who is holding the brush high and enjoy the colorful and grand views in this area of Skane.
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