In 1932, Sigrid Hjertén decided to return to Stockholm. But during packing she collapsed. She got to Sweden and was temporarily taken to the psychiatric hospital of Beckomberga with symptoms of schizophrenia. She recovered periodically, and in the following two years (1932–34) Hjertén's artistry culminated in a crescendo, where, like one possessed, she made pictures that expressed strongly loaded feelings. She devoted herself to intensive painting, creating one picture a day, the picture-book of her life, according to an interview in the Swedish art magazine Paletten. Some paintings radiate horror while others give a warm and harmonious impression.
During 1934, she traveled with her family in the south of Europe, where she painted. Hjertén eventually made her name as an artist among the critics in 1935, when she exhibited with Isaac in Gothenburg. Yet, most contemporary critics had a negative and even scornful attitude towards Hjertén's works of art, and many of them wrote deeply offensive reviews. Among other things, her paintings were called idiocy, humbug, horrors and products of handicap.
She won public recognition only in 1936, when she had a well-received solo exhibition at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. "After viewing the nearly 500 works in her 1936 retrospective, the critics were unanimous: the exhibition was hailed as one of the most remarkable of the season and Sigrid Hjerten was honored as one of Sweden's greatest and most original modern artists. Thus, she gained recognition—but too late."[1]
Isaac, who had many mistresses over the years, divorced Sigrid and remarried. Both Isaac and his new wife later died in a flying accident in 1946.
In the late 30s, Sigrid suffered from escalating mental illness, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was permanently hospitalised at Beckomberga Psychiatric Hospital in Stockholm, where she remained for the rest of her life. After 1938 her artistic output dwindled. Following a botched lobotomy, she died in Stockholm in 1948.