Mercurii Triumf

Mercurii Triumf by Peter Dahl (1989) is a large oil hexatych installed in the Terrace Room at Holländargatan. It was a site-specific commission by the then president of SSE, who asked Dahl to draw the portraits of the school's entire board. The painting also includes portraits of K. A. Wallenberg (founder of the school), Dahl himselfs depicted as Karl Marx and Scrooge McDuck dancing into the room with "the two-headed and four-armed goddess Mercurius Hermes" both with the SSE emblem painted on their chests.

In the end of the 1980s, the then SSE president Staffan Burenstam Linder, comissioned this painting by Peter Dahl for a room in the then newly acquired building on Holländargatan, which had previously belonged to the Stockholm University student union.

The painting, Mercurii Triumf (the Triumph of Mercury), is permanently installed in the Terrace room at Holländargatan and shows a selection of former SSE faculty, board members, bankers, and businessmen, including names like SSE founder K. A. Wallenberg, Nobel prize laureate Bertil Ohlin, and political economist Eli Heckscher. It also shows Peter Dahl himself painted as Karl Marx, and former SSE professor, and the artist’s childhood friend, Gunnar Karnell depicted as a child. Finally, Uncle Scrooge is shown dancing into the room together with – what Dahl himself described as – “the two-headed and four-armed goddess Mercurius Hermes”. Both have the SSE emblem painted on their chests. Hermes was in Greek mythology (Mercurius in Roman mythology) the god of business, trade, and thieves.

Peter Dahl painted in an expressive realistic style with bright colors and a critical perspective on the luxury of the upper class and the bourgeois environment he himself did not grow up in. He was outgoing and liked to depict his own life with a touch of self-irony. The image of the mythological gods of business, trade, and thieves dancing in as a two-headed goddess with four arms together with notoriously thrifty Uncle Scrooge, both with the SSE logo stamped on their chest, is certainly noticeable.

The history of the building at Holländargatan is also interesting, and might have played a part in Dahl's vision for the painting.

SSE acquired the building on Holländargatan in the end of the 1980s. It had until then served as the Stockholm University student union building. In 1968, the building housed one of the most talked about events in Sweden at the time: the occupation of the Student Union Building (Kårhusockupationen). Inspired by the international protests of 1968, and especially those of May 1968 in France, students at Stockholm University decided to occupy the Stockholm University student union's building, primarily protesting the Swedish educational reform at the time. They argued that the goal of the reform was to satisfy capitalism's need for labor, not to create a more humane and democratic society, something they were strongly opposed to. Famously, then Minister of Education, Olof Palme gave a speech addressing the students in the great hall at Holländargatan.

Peter Dahl (1934–2019) was a painter, graphic artist, sculptor and writer. He was born in Oslo and came to Stockholm during the war years in the 1940s. Dahl studied at the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm between 1958 and 1963. He was active as a teacher at the Gelesborg School during the 60s and 70s, as well as head teacher of painting at Valand, Gothenburg 1971-73 and professor the Royal Institute of Arts 1975-79.

As a graphic artist, Dahl has become known especially for his congenial illustrations for Bellman's "Fredman's Epistles".

Hermes was in Greek mythology (Mercurius in Roman mythology) the god of business, trade, and thieves. In Peter Dahl's painting, the god is depicted as a two-headed goddess with four arms, and both her and greedy Scrrodge McDuck carry the SSE emblem on their chests as they dance among the businessmen and bankers in Mercurii Triumf.