Carl Milles left behind an extensive collection of private letters. They reveal a complex person with many
interests and strong opinions. Beside everyday greetings and
reflections, many of the letters give insight to Milles’s artistic
work but also show in several letters support for fascism and
nazism. What is the significance of Milles’s opinions when
we encounter his art? In the spring of 2025, Millesgården
invited six people to discuss the issue.
Whereas Millesgården manages an artistic legacy, we must also relate to another, darker side of Carl Milles. We know that, in private letters, Milles expressed pro-German sympathies and admiration for, among others, Hitler.
Carl Milles was a prolific letter writer and left behind a collection of tens of thousands of documents – both letters he sent and draft versions. These letters give us a unique insight into his artistic work as well as his thoughts on politics and the situation in the world. They also give us a sense of what major cultural personalities talked about among each other in the first half of the 20th century. Since 2000, the complete collection of letters has been housed at the National Library of Sweden and is available to both researchers and the general public.
The letters reveal a complex person who is engaged in many of the major issues of his time. For example, he wrote that art should be available for everyone, and that schools teach too little of the humanities. He was a pacifist and, like many of his generation, was interested in spirituality. In the 1920s, Milles expressed concern for the future of Europe. He was concerned about rising inflation and was frightened by the spread of communism. He was passionate about classical art, music, literature and philosophy.
Between 1931 and 1951, Carl Milles lived in the United States, where he held the first professorship in sculpture at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, and became an American citizen in 1945. He made several trips home to Europe before the outbreak of the Second World War.
In several letters, mainly in the 1930s and early 1940s, Milles expressed his admiration for leaders such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. He was fascinated by their power of action and plans for social structure and investments in art and culture.
These views are mainly expressed in private letters to the authors Verner von Heidenstam and Sven Hedin, as well as to Milles’ Austrian wife Olga Milles (née Granner). There is no doubt that Carl Milles expressed sympathies with Germany and support for elements of Nazi ideology. He also expressed anti-Semitic views. At the same time, Milles’s stance was not consistent throughout. He was fundamentally a humanist and his personal commitment did not always follow the ideological line he sometimes expressed. In some letters, he questioned and criticised Nazism and developments in Germany.
He was never a member of a Nazi party nor politically active, although he was a member of the Riksföreningen Sverige-Tyskland (National Association of Sweden-Germany), which was established in Lund in 1937 to “work for a fair assessment of the new Germany”. Over the years, the number of statements dwindled in the preserved letters. Parts of the letter collection show signs of being incomplete, which could indicate that it was purged at some point – but we do not know for sure when, by whom and from what.
Carl Milles’ political sympathies have raised questions about the reasonableness of honouring him as an artist and whether it is possible to read political values into his art. Several projects have previously been carried out, initiated by both Millesgården and external researchers, to collect as much knowledge about Milles as possible through his own words in his letters. In the summer of 2025, as we mark 150 years since the birth of Carl Milles with the largest exhibition to date about the artist and person Carl Milles, it remains important to also address this issue. This is done both in the exhibition and in a recorded roundtable discussion that invites different voices and perspectives.
At Millesgården, we have an important teaching task to create a place in which art history is not only preserved, but also discussed. Through continued research, open dialogue and inclusive programmes, we want to provide a space for reflection – not only about Carl Milles’s work and person, but also about our understanding of art, culture and ideology today – where it is possible to both celebrate the artistic and critically examine the human aspects.
Photo: Millesgården archive