Nick Cave
The Devil – A Life
12 February—31 May 2026
Kulturhuset stadsteatern, Stockholm, Sweden
The Devil – A Life is an exhibition by world-renowned musician and author Nick Cave. The exhibition presents Cave's series of seventeen hand-painted ceramic figurines depicting the life of the devil from birth to death. The coherent narrative moves through innocence, confusion, guilt, sorrow, and forgiveness, revealing another side of the artist Nick Cave.
Nick Cave on the characters " At night, when I try to sleep, I close my eyes and see the figures marching past in succession. This procession creates a certain meaning and gives me enormous comfort. It pulls my own story out of the darkness, out of the chaos, as if to bear witness to something. It brings order and a kind of peace to the world".
The Devil – A Life
The Devil – A Life ceramic series is inspired by Victorian Staffordshire figurines, which depicted everyday and biblical scenes in miniature. In Nick Cave's series, the figurines form a coherent narrative in 17 stations, where the devil is portrayed as a deeply human, imperfect, and vulnerable character. The story follows him through childhood, love, family, tragedy, and regret, culminating in the final figurine, The Devil Forgiven.
Nick Cave's library
As part of the exhibition at Kulturhuset City Theatre, Nick Cave's library City Theatre also City Theatre, featuring around a hundred of Cave's favorite books. The books have been personally selected for the exhibition in Stockholm and can be read on site or borrowed with a library card.
Nick Cave and ceramics
Nick Cave's journey into ceramics began long before his international breakthrough as a musician and author. As a teenager, he took a ceramics course where he created his first figurines—small, idiosyncratic figures that his mother surrounded herself with throughout her life. In 1976, Cave studied painting at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (Monash University, Melbourne), before leaving his studies to pursue a career in music. It was only when the pandemic put a stop to touring that he returned to his early interest in working with clay.
The series of 17 ceramic figurines is on loan from Museum Voorlinden in the Netherlands and was first exhibited at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels.