Millesgården

Millesgården, located on Lidingö Island near Stockholm, is a museum, sculpture park, and artist’s home created by sculptor Carl Milles and his wife, artist Olga Milles. Visitors can wander through lush terraces adorned with sculptures and fountains, explore the artists’ former residence and studios, and enjoy rotating art exhibitions. The museum also features a café and restaurant offering locally produced and organic food, as well as a museum shop with a selection of art-related items.

Planning your visit

Millesgården is the house, studio and sculpture garden of Carl Milles, Sweden's best-known sculptor, laid out on terraces cut into a cliff on Lidingö with views across the water toward Stockholm. Milles and his wife Olga, a painter, built it from 1906 and gave it to the nation in 1936, and the terraces are populated with his own bronzes — figures on tall columns, fountains, Poseidon, winged forms placed against open sky so that they read against clouds rather than walls.

That siting is the whole idea. Milles arranged the sculptures at height and against emptiness, and the effect changes entirely with weather and season. Below, the house and studios are preserved with his collection of classical antiquities and the couple's furnishings.

An art gallery added later holds rotating exhibitions of contemporary work, which keeps the site from being purely a memorial.

The café and restaurant are good, and the terraces reward lingering.

It is a short journey from central Stockholm by metro and bus. Bookable options include museum tickets covering the sculpture park, house and current gallery exhibitions. Summer and early autumn are the strongest seasons for the outdoor terraces. Current availability is listed below.