Swedish artists – my daily art display

Emma Hilma Amalia Löwstädt-Chadwick

The artist I am looking at today was one of several successful Swedish female artists who spent time studying in Paris during the 1880s. Her artwork was displayed every year at the great Paris Salons as well as in Sweden. Let me introduce you to Emma Hilma Amalia Löwstädt-Chadwick.

Portrait of Emma by her husband by Francis Brooks Chadwick

Emma Hilma Amalia Löwstädt was born in Stockholm on August 10^th, 1855. Her father was Carl Rudolf Löwstädt, a well-off and well-respected businessman whose successful business acumen had made him one of Stockholm’s leading tailors. Rudolf was a fervent and active communist, who had adopted his political stance during his time as an apprentice in Paris where he had become friends with the philosopher Etienne Cabet. Emma’s mother was Carolina née Nordqvist. Emma’s paternal grandfather was Carl Theodor Löwstädt, a painter of miniatures, an illustrator, and a lithographer.

Eva Löwstädt-Åström portrait by her sister Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt was the second eldest of five children. Her mother Carolina died when Emma was just nine years old, a few weeks after she had given birth to her youngest child, Eva. Eva later went on to also become a well-known artist, Eva Löwstädt-Åström.

French landscape shepherd with pigs by Emma Lowstadt Chadwick

Emma loved to paint and draw as a young girl and her father, who had once hoped to become a painter, encouraged her in her artistic pursuits. His support and his financial resources meant that he could help his daughter, not just financially, but also through assisting her in every way he could whilst she resided abroad. Emma started her artistic education at the Technical School, then studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1874 to 1880.

Interior with woman by Emma Lowstadt Chadwick

Her classmates included aspiring, and soon to be well-known, artists such as Julia Beck, Carolina Benedicks-Bruce, Eva Bonnier, Mina Carlson-Bredberg, Karin Larsson, and Jenny Nyström. Emma shone as a student, gained approving attention for her artwork and won many prizes in the annual competitions held by the Royal Swedish Academy of Art.

Off to Sea by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

During the summer of 1879 Emma spent time on the Breton coast where she was able to practice the new French trends of Impressionism and painting en plein air. Her motifs included flocks of sheep, at the seaside as well as depicting the lives of people who lived in the northern coastal towns of France. This style of painting which Emma embraced was so different from what she had been taught and had practiced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Art.

Beach Parasol, Brittany (Portrait of Amanda Sidwall) by Emma Löwstäd (1880)

One of her most famous paintings whilst she was travelling around the towns on the Brittany coast was entitled Beach Parasol, Brittany (Portrait of Amanda Sidwall), which she completed in 1880. It depicted her friend Amanda Stilwell painting en plein air on the beach. Amanda Sitwell, like Emma, had studied at the women’s department of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts and then gone to Paris to continued her studies under Tony-Robert Fleury at the Académie Julian.

The Card Party by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

In 1880 Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick returned to Paris from Brittany and enrolled at Académie Julian, which, at the time, was one of the few private schools which accepted female students. Emma’s teachers were Jean-Charles Cazin and Tony Robert-Fleury. During her first year as a student one of her paintings was accepted for display at the Paris Salon, This, to her, was a great achievement, as all artists fought to get their work accepted at such a prestigious event. Acceptance was a form of recognition, which could lead to public mentions as well as gold and silver medals. Her paintings were accepted at the Salon every year throughout the 1880’s and into the 1890’s and her works would be at the Salon as late as in 1924. In 1887 she received special mention at the Salon for her painting entitled Five o’clock tea.

Woman and Child by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt, after completing her studies at Académie Julian in Paris, travelled south to the village of Grez-sur-Loing. Beautiful landscapes had always played a prominent part in the artistic education of the painter and Grez had that beauty in abundance. Grez-sur-Loing had once been an artistic retreat for American and British artists during the latter years of the 1870’s, but later became the focal point for the Scandinavian, although predominantly Swedish, artists. From 1880 until the turn-of-the-century, the colony at Grez-sur-Loing thrived, providing an abundant source of inspiration for Swedish artists, all of whom sought an escape from the hustle-and-bustle of life in the French capital.

Portrait of her husband, Francis Chadwick by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

It was whilst living in Grez-sur-Loing that Emma met the wealthy Bostonian painter, Francis Chadwick , who was an important and innovative figure in the American art world in the late nineteenth century. Chadwick was a portrait, figure and landscape painter, and he became part of the expatriate American art community at Grez. Emma and Chadwick eventually fell in love and in 1882 the couple married.

Pension Laurent in Grez-sur-Loing by Elias Erdtman (1886)

They had a house built there and later purchased Pension Laurent, which was one of only two boarding houses in Grez-sur-Loing. Emma’s husband was a wealthy man which allowed the couple to live a carefree life, and they travelled together on many painting-trips to a variety of countries such as America, Spain, North Africa, Italy, and Great Britain, providing new motifs for Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick’s paintings.

Resting by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick had her work exhibited at the World’s Fairs held in Paris in 1889 and in 1900 and she received an “honourable mention” in 1889 for her painting entitled Fångvakterska. More of her work appeared at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 part of a group exhibition by twenty Swedish female artists exhibiting there in The Women’s Building. With her husband she lived an expatriate artistic life moving between Cornwall, London and France, where they spent much time with the artists’ colony at Grez sur Loing.

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick depicted in Swedish Journal, Idun nr 50, 1892.

In later life, she had transitioned from painting to etching and her graphics were popular with Parisian collectors. Her motifs for her etchings were much the same as for her painting: genre pictures with peasants and fishermen and quiet interiors, but she also executed a series of very suggestive Paris images.

The Young Mother by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

In 1885, Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick was one of 84 artists who signed up to the Opponentrörelsen (Opponent Movement), a protest against the stultified Royal Swedish Academy of Art and its teaching methodology. The protest group was led by Ernst Josephson and in 1885, the members submitted their written demands to the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts for a modernization and reform of art education, exhibition activities and support for artists. The demands were rejected by the Academy and so the group formed the the Konstnärsförbundet (‘the Artists’ Association’) and the following year, Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick joined the group and took part in several of their exhibitions.

Sleeping Child by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

My favourite painting by Emma is her 1885 work entitled Sleeping Child. Emma has managed to capture the sleeping figure in an immediate and moving manner. In a way, it is a study of the vulnerability of small children in our culture. Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick, through the medium of her paintings, wanted to study the home, human relations and our basic need for mutual recognition. It is truly a beautiful depiction of an innocent child.

Portrait of a Girl (thought to be one of her daughters) by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick died in Avignon on January 2nd 1932, aged 76.

Carl and Karin Larsson. Part 2.

*Karin Larsson with her firstchild, Suzanne (1885)*

Carl and Karin Larsson married in late 1882 and in 1884 their first child, Suzanne was born. Their second child, a son Ulf, was born in 1887 but sadly died when he was eighteen. In all, Carl and Karin had eight children. After Ulf came Pontus in 1888, Lisbeth in 1891, Brita in 1893, Mats in 1894 but he died aged just two months, Kersti in 1896 and finally Esbjörn in 1900. It is quite obvious that Karin’s time was taken with the upbringing of their children.

In 1888 the couple returned to Sweden with their two children and on deciding to settle permanently in Sweden Karin’s father, Adolf Bergöö, gave them a wooden cottage in the countryside of central Sweden, which had belonged to relatives. The house named Lilla Hyttnäs, was situated in the town of Sundborn, in Falun Municipality, 250 kilometres north-west of Stockholm.

Carl remembered his first visit to the cottage accompanied by his father-in-law and in his 1899 book, Ett Hem (A Home) he wrote:

“…The cottage stood right on a bend in the Sundborn River, just where it gets a smidgeon wider. Everything inside was spick and span, the furniture was simple, but old fashioned and robust, handed down by their parents, who had lived in the vicinity. While I was here, I experienced an indescribably delightful feeling of seclusion from the hustle and bustle of the world, which I have only experienced once before (and that was in a village in the French countryside). When my Father in law suggested buying me a small property in the same village, I declined, saying that only something resembling this little idyll would suit an artist…”

Lilla Hyttnäs soon became Carl and Karin’s mutual art project in which their artistic talents found expression in a very modern and personal choice of colour schemes and interior design. The couple favoured bright colours, and filled the rooms with handcrafts, which mirrored the Arts and Crafts Movement which had inspired them. The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that first emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in the British Isles and then spread to the rest of Europe and America.

Karin Larsson was a young mother, but on top of that she was an ambitious woman who although she had stepped back from her painting, she had replaced the canvas with other artistic goals that would see her use needles, thread and silks instead of brushes and paint. She would now concentrate on home furnishings which would brighten up the old cottage. The cottage interior had now taken the place of the canvas. Her great inspiration was William Morris, who was a leader of the English Arts and Crafts movement, and she liked to incorporate foliage designs across her upholstery. Karin’s husband, Carl, created a series of twenty-six watercolours, entitled A Home which depicted the beautiful interior designs of his wife.

The Studio (From “A Home” watercolor series) by Carl Larsson

Karin Larsson spent mch time designing fabrics for their furniture. One example of this is the chair cover (below).

Her beautifully, highly colourful designs were used for bench cushion covers.

*Bench cushion cover designed by Karin Larsson*

The transition from painting to textile art and home furnishings by married females was in those days an acceptable evolution and was not seen as something forced upon them by their husbands. In the work she lovingly put together to create their home she was able to express herself through the medium of textiles, and furniture design.

*Rocking Chair designed by Karin Larsson*

Karin’s life at Lilla Hyttnäs was tiring. She had to cope with the everyday house chores and eight children to manage. Her eighth child, a son, Esbjorn had been born in 1900. However, she still found time to design and weave a large amount of the textiles which she utilised in her home. She also spent time embroidering, and designing clothes for herself and the children. The aprons, known as karinförkläde in Swedish, were worn by her and the other women who worked at the house.

Carl Larsson’s bedroom at Lilla Hyttnäs was a through-room. The door is wide open to the end room where his wife and the smaller children slept. The white four-poster bed with embroidered curtains stands in the middle of the floor. It has several ingenious features, such as a bench, a chamber-pot cupboard and a small, built-in bedside table. Look closely at the background and you will see that this is also a self portrait as we can just observe the artist, looking in a mirror, doing up his collar buttons.

The interiors of the Larsson home were characterised by rural simplicity. Nevertheless, every detail was carefully designed, with influences from England, Scotland and Japan.

The kitchen, which was first and foremost a place for household chores, did not display the same modern interior style and comfort as the rest of the house.

Through Larsson’s paintings and books their house has become one of the most famous artist’s homes in the world. The descendants of Carl and Karin Larsson now own this house and keep it open for tourists each summer from May until October. The rooms of the house featured in many of Carl’s paintings and books.

*Self portrait in New Studio by Carl Larsson*

Besides depictions of their home featuring in his artwork which highlighted Karin as a talented interior designer, Carl featured his wife and children in many of his paintings.

Karin and her first child Suzanne by Carl Larsson (1887)

In 1905 Carl featured his seventh child, eleven-year-old Kersti in his watercolour work.

In his 1890 watercolour it was his third-born child, two-year-old son, Pontus, who featured.

Pontus on the Floor by Carl Larsson (1890)

The Christmas spirit was captured in some of his family portraits.

Carl and Karin’s fifth child, daughter Brita, was depicted as Idun or Iduna, the Norse goddess of Spring and rejuvenation. Norse mythology tells us that Idun was the keeper of the magic apples of immortality, which the gods must eat to preserve their youth. Iduna carried her apples in a box made of ash (called an eski), along with her fruit, and this box served as one of Idun’s major symbols.

*Azalea by Carl Larsson featuring his wife Karin*

Carl Larsson travelled away on a number of occasions leaving the household and his children the sole responsibility of his wife. Karin employed the carpenters and painters needed to transform Lilla Hyttnäs and was the one who made all the decisions with regards its interior. He never underestimated the role she played in their marriage and this was evident when you look at his artwork and read his books.

In his book Ett Hem, there is an amusing watercolour by Carl of his son Pontus sitting rather gloomily on his chair in an empty room. Larsson talked about the depiction saying that he took the idea from the sight of a gloomy little boy who had been sent from the table as he had misbehaved during the family meal and had been left to deliberate on his misbehaviour whilst languishing in the beautiful room. Pontus’ bad behaviour was probably not a factor in this work but his punishment was real, that of having to sit still for such a long period whilst his father sketched the scene ! The depiction is probably more about the room itself and the combination of the striped chair covers and rugs, with the tiles of the fireplace.

The central part of the painting is taken up by the door. The design of which is a mix of irregularity on the lower panel whilst the panel above is a drawing based on a poem by the English Victorian artist and writer Kate Greenaway’s poem: There was an old woman, who lived on a hill and changed by the artist to There was a little woman who lived with Carl Larsson. Above the door we see decorations, and even though it was a classical temple, it is surrounded by leaves.

In many of his paintings featuring the interior of Lilla Hyttnäs and his family, reading was a recurring topic and was probably a means of enhancing the idea that his young family were well educated, unlike himself, during his torrid childhood.

Carl and Karin Larsson’s popularity increased considerably with the progress of colour reproduction technology in the 1890s. The Swedish publishing house Bonnier published books written and illustrated by Carl Larsson and containing full colour reproductions of his watercolours, such as Ett Hem. (A Home).

However, the print runs of these rather expensive art books were small in comparison to those published in 1909 by the German publisher Karl Robert Langewiesche. He had chosen a number of Carl’s watercolours, drawings and text by the artist, which culminated in the publication in 1909 0f Das Haus in der Sonne (The House in the Sun), which became one of the German publishing industry’s best-sellers of the year with forty thousand copies sold in three months, and which required more than forty print runs. Carl and Karin were delighted with the success.

Car Larsson’s 1907 mural Gustav Vasa’s procession into Stockholm, 1523 (7 x 14 metres)
Nationalmuseum Stockholm.

For all his paintings depicting his wife, children and beloved home, all his illustrating work for books and newspapers, he considered his large-scale frescoes as his most important work. He created frescoes for schools, museums and other public buildings. In 1907, Larsson completed his mural of Gustav Vasa’s procession into Stockholm, 1523, which was hung with his other commissioned murals in the National Museum in Stockholm, part of a series of murals which he had been working on since the mid-1890s.

*Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice) by Carl Larsson (1915)*

In 1915 Carl had just completed his last monumental work, Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice), which measured 6 x 14 metres (20ft x 46ft). This was yet another fresco commission he had received from the National Museum in Stockholm and this would like several other of his works adorn the walls of the museum. This new fresco painting would be placed on the wall of the hall which led to the central staircase of the museum. The painting, entitled Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice) depicts a legend from Norse mythology in which the Swedish king Domalde is sacrificed at the Temple of Uppsala in order to avert famine. Larsson was rightly excited with the commission but devastated when the museum rejected the finished work. Larsson was extremely bitter with the museum’s decision. In his autobiography, he wrote:

“…The fate of Midvinterblot broke me! This I admit with a dark anger. And still, it was probably the best thing that could have happened, because my intuition tells me – once again! – that this painting, with all its weaknesses, will one day, when I’m gone, be honoured with a far better placement…”

Later in the book Larsson admitted that the paintings depicting his family and home:

“…became the most immediate and lasting part of my life’s work. For these pictures are of course a very genuine expression of my personality, of my deepest feelings, of all my limitless love for my wife and children…”

The controversial rejection of Larsson’s painting rumbled on well past his death in 1919. Some schools of Swedish artists loved the work whilst others hated it. The painting was never hung in its designated space and the wall remained bare.

In 1987, one artist from the “school of detractors” offered the museum a monumental painting for free, provided it would adorn the empty space but the museum declined the offer. The painting was then sold to a Japanese art collector, Hiroshi Ishizuka, who in 1992, agreed to lend it back to the museum for its major Carl Larsson exhibition. The painting was hung exactly where Larsson had intended. On seeing the giant painting, the public loved it and wanted the museum to buy it from the Japanese owner. With the aid of public and private donations, the museum and the Japanese owner came to an agreed price and in 1997 the painting was purchased by the museum and the painting remained in its “rightful” place and it remains part of the museum collection.

Carl Larsson died on January 22nd 1919 aged 65. His wife Karin died nine years later on February 18th 1928 aged 68.

Carl and Karin Larsson. Part 1.

My blog today focuses on the lives and works of a very talented nineteenth century Swedish couple, Carl and Karin Larsson, a couple whose upbringing was so different.

Carl Olof Larsson was born on May 28^th 1853 in the Stockholm town of Gamla stan, which literally translates to “old town” but is now known as Staden mellan broarna (“The Town between the Bridges”) as its geographical position is an island, Stadtsholman, which is dissected by two bridges, the Centralbron and, the Skeppsbron. Carl was brought up in an impoverished household and by all accounts, he led a wretched childhood. More can be gleaned of Carl’s terrible early existence when you read Renate Puvogel’s 1994 biography of Larsson in which she talks about his and his mother’s terrible existence at the hands of Carl’s father:

“…His mother was thrown out of the house, together with Carl and his brother Johan; after enduring a series of temporary dwellings, the family moved into Grev Magnigränd No. 7 (later No. 5) in what was then Ladugårdsplan, present-day Östermalm…”.

Carl Larsson’s father had changed jobs many times. He worked as a casual labourer, sailed as a stoker on a ship, and during this time he also managed to lose the lease to a nearby mill. Ironically, years later, he was employed at that same mill as a lowly grain carrier. Carl Larsson, in his autobiography. Jag, portrayed his father as a loveless man lacking self-control; he said that he drank, ranted and raved, and incurred the lifelong hatred of his son after once declaring to Carl that he cursed the day that his son was born. In contrast, Carl’s mother worked long hours as a laundress to provide for her family.

In his autobiography, Jag, Larsson wrote about his childhood home in Stockholm’s Old Town . Misery was his overwhelming memory of those early years. He talked about dirt and rats swarming the spaces between mattresses thrown to the floor. Such conditions were conducive to the outbreak of cholera, which broke out in Stockholm in 1866. In his world as a child, the word ‘home’ did not have positive connotations, it meant something rather like a camp where one could not dream of privacy or comfort. Carl related how he often went hungry, and how he was physically drained by having to help with heavy chores such as carrying water, chopping wood and shoveling snow.

*Old Sundborn Church by Carl Larsson (1895)*

His salvation came when he was thirteen-years-old and his teacher at the school for the poor was impressed by Carl’s drawing skills, and advised his mother to have their son apply to the preparatory school of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He was accepted but the first years there were a trial for the young boy who was both withdrawn, shy and suffered from an inferiority complex. In 1869, at the age of sixteen, he moved up to the lowest department of the Art Academy itself. There Larsson personality changed. He became more confident and more outgoing and even became a central figure in student life.

The Old Man and New Trees by Carl Larsson (1883)

In his early days at the Academy Carl earned his first medal in nude drawing. He also worked as a caricaturist for the humorous paper Kasper and as a graphic artist for the newspaper Ny Illustrerad Tidning and from the earnings he made from this work he was able to help his parents financially for many years. Once he had graduated from the Academy, Carl travelled to Paris for he believed it was there that he could improve his academic painting. Carl went back and forth between Paris and Sweden for many years.

He remained in Paris for many years working hard but with little success. Larsson was reluctant to align himself with the Impressionist movement and like many of his Swedish compatriots, who were living in the French capital, he shunned this radical artistic movement of change which was all the rage in Paris. As well as receiving some commissions Larsson illustrated books, among which were Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and August Strindberg’s, Svenska folket and helg och söcken [The Swedish People]). It was never enough to make him financially sound. Carl continued to work tirelessly whilst in Paris but to no great avail and he was often short of money.

*Wilhelmina Holmgren by Carl Larsson (1876)*

Carl had many romantic trysts during this period and for a time he lived with Wilhelmina Holmgren whose portrait he painted in 1876. Sadly she died giving birth to their second child, and soon after, both their children had passed. The situation at the time had a traumatic effect on Larsson who sank into deep depression and for a time he contemplated suicide.

*Portrait of Carl Skånberg by Carl Larsson (1878)*

In 1878 Carl Larsson completed a portrait of Carl Skånberg, a fellow Academy student who had also moved to Paris. Carl submitted the portrait to the Salon that year but unfortunately it was hung so high up on the wall of the Salon that it was hard to see ! During his period in Paris he spent two summers in Barbizon with the en plein air painters but in 1882 he moved to another artist colony, Grez-sur-Loing.

On October 3^rd 1859, when Carl was just a six year-old child, a hundred miles to the west of Stockholm, the birthplace of Carl Larsson, a girl, Karin, was born, the daughter of Adolf Bergöö, who was a successful businessman and his wife, Hilda Sahlqvist. Although born in Örebro Karin grew up in Hallsberg, a town to the south, where her father ran a trading house and he soon became one of the leading citizens of the town. Unlike Carl’s upbringing Karin was brought up in a family which had no financial problems and she had a happy childhood. At the age of twelve, Karin was sent to Stockholm where she divided her time between the French School and courses at slöjdskolan (a craft school). Following a few years of study, she transferred to the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1877. The Academy had only been open to female students since 1864.

*Still Life with Fruit and Tankard*, *1877 painting by Karin Bergöö*

Karin Larsson started at the Fruntimmers (womens) department, where the teaching was completely separate from that of her male students. Although a woman training to be an artist was possible, females wanting to paint were looked upon as just wanting to have a skill that would help in their search for a husband.

In 1882, twenty-three-year-old Karin Larsson, along with some of her fellow artist students, including the talented Impressionist, Julia Beck, travelled to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Colarossi. During the summer break, like many other Swedish painters and writers, they travelled to the artist colony Grez-sur-Loing, seventy kilometres south of Paris. The first overseas artists to arrive at the small village were the Americans, English, Scots and Irish. Then, during the 1880s most of the artists were Scandinavians and just before the turn of the century the Japanese arrived to found the Japanese impressionist movement at Grez. The central part of the village is criss-crossed by meandering streets and much of the town looks the same as it did over 100 years ago. The village is off the beaten track, built on the river that runs leisurely underneath the imposing leafy trees. Grez-sur-Loing is no longer just a farming community, it is a small village which has the unmistakable charm of the late 18th and early 19th century French countryside. It was here that she met Carl Larsson, who was something of a “leader” of the artistic fraternity. Life that summer in Grez for Karin was an artistic highlight and she and Carl Larsson worked side by side, often depicting similar motifs.

One of Karen’s best paintings at the time was a watercolour entitled Mère Morot which she completed in 1882.

October (*The Pumpkins) by Carl Larsson (1882)*

One of the works Carl Larsson produced that year whilst at the Colony was entitled The Pumpkins, some time referred to as October.

Whilst living at Gez-sur-Loing, Carl and Karin’s friendship intensified and the couple fell in love. It was noted that Carl became a much happier man and that his paintings became more colourful. Carl never held himself to be a great catch for Karin in fact on asking her father for her hand in marriage, he wrote to him saying that he was not somebody special but that given time he would prove himself to be a good husband. Karin’s father was impressed with Carl saying that he was a man in the fullest sense of the word and would be pleased to have him as his son-in-law. It is an insight into the couple’s future when Karin wrote to Carl saying that she looked forward to marrying him and giving up painting. This sounds like she had given in to possible future emancipation but it is believed that she was signalling a different artistic route she intended to take once married. She was going to concentrate on interior design and using her creative spirit. A talent which we will see in the next part of the blog, came to fruition. In the autumn of 1882 Carl and Karin married.

To end this first part of Carl and Karin’s story I wanted to go back to his autobiography entitled Jag which translates simply to “I”. He completed it two days before he died but it was never published in full until 1969 ! Why ???

After his death, Carl’s autobiography was read by his wife Karin and the book publisher and friend of the family, Karl Otto Bonnier. The words they read shocked them and they were stunned by what Carl had revealed about his life. In the book he had written quite unabashed about his pre-marital love affairs and that he had lived together and had two children with Wilhelmina Holmgren. He also recounted the tale with regards his favoured model, Gabrielle, and her beauty and the time she had screamed in rage and accused him of being a seducer when he had told her that he had found the right one (Karin). Karin and the publisher decided that the autobiography should not be made available to the public. However, in late 1931, twelve years after Carl’s death and four years after Karin’s passing the publishing house, Bonniers, decided to publish a redacted (sanitised?) version of Carl’s autobiography and it was not until 1969, fifty years after his death, that the full unabridged version was released.

In the next part of the story of Carl and Kari Larsson I will look at Carl’s later more colourful works of art and the couples life back in Sweden in their beautiful home which Karin added so much beauty to.

Jenny Eugenia Nyström

Britain over the years have had many talented children’s book illustrators. There are the likes of Beatrix Potter with her illustrative work seen in books of Peter Rabbit and his Friends. There was Ernest Howard Shepard, an English artist and book illustrator, known especially for illustrations of the animal and soft toy characters in The Wind in the Willows and Winnie-the-Pooh. Let us not forget Quinton Blake for his illustrations in the Roald Dahl books. There is Roger Hargreaves for his illustrations for his Mr Men and Little Miss books and Raymond Briggs for his unforgettable illustrations for his wordless picture book, The Snowman.

The book cover is an illustration of a sail boat coming into a forested shore. On the shore, sleeping against a tree, is a giant furry monster with bare human feet and the head of a bull. Above the illustration, written in uneven block capital letters against a white background, is the title of the book "Where the Wild Things Are" and below the illustration, "Story and pictures by Maurice Sendak".

America has its share of great children’s book illustrators such as Maurice Sendak, an American illustrator and writer of children’s books. He became widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. Sendak also wrote works such as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated many works by other authors including the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik. One of course calls to mind Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. His books and illustrations are loved by children and adults from all around the world, his books are quirky treasures that leave a lasting impression. He wrote his first children’s book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, in 1937, and the book that catapulted him into success, The Cat in the Hat, in 1957.

Image of Tomte

A Tomte

In today’s blog I am looking at the life and work of one of Sweden’s great illustrators, Jenny Eugenia Nyström, who was the first woman in Sweden to be awarded a royal medal for her historically themed painting. Her legacy was established by the popularity of her depictions of tomte, a mythological creature often associated with Christmas. Jenny Nyström’s artwork was modern as well as humorous. It was not unusual to see a “tomte” captaining an airplane, driving a car, a truck, a motorcycle or even a train. She was not afraid to use exotic animals like elephants and giraffes as “tomte” assistants for delivering Christmas presents across Sweden. The images also contained several elements of traditional folk Christmas imagery such as Christmas goats, Christmas trees, sleighs, toboggans and more.

Christmas card with jultomte by Jenny Nyström, (circa 1899)

Jenny Nyström was born in the Kalmar County district of Malmen, Sweden on June 13^th 1854. She was the daughter of Daniel Isacsson Nyström, the cantor of the Kalmar Castle church, a local schoolteacher and an accomplished piano player who gave piano lessons. Jenny’s mother was Anette Eleonora Bergendahl. Jenny Nyström had three brothers, Emil, Leonard and Axel and one sister Augusta. She was the third of the five children, and reportedly was an energetic and imaginative youngster who later spoke about her happy and idyllic upbringing in Kalmar, a town in the southeast of Sweden. She had a happy home life living with her parents, siblings as well as her maternal grandparents, two maternal aunts and her maternal great grandmother. Her father attended to her education whilst her mother was remembered by her daughter for her storytelling.

Bear Reading Going Upstairs Godt Nytt Ar by Jenny Nyström (c.1910)

In November 1863, when Jenny was nine years old the family left Kalmar and moved to the Gothenburg suburb of Majorna where her father had a teaching post. Jenny was devastated to leave her Kalmar friends and wrote about her new home:

“…In the beginning, I found my stay in Gothenburg very boring, when I had no playmates, and when I got them, they just made life miserable for me, as they imitated my Kalmar dialect. I couldn’t speak clean. I often longed to go back to Kalmar and to my little playmates there and then to these nice windmills, in whose wings we hung, when it didn’t blow too hard, and after the outbuilding roof where we used to sit and sunbathe, and after grandpa’s old garden with the frog pond…”

Along with the family came the Nyström’s maid, Karin Johansdotter who would be part of Jenny’s “family” for many years. Up until this time Jenny had been home-schooled by her father but once in Gothenburg, she attended Mrs Natt och Dag’s local primary school and after graduating from there she attended the Kjellbergska flickskolan (Kjellberg Girls’ School), a school founded by a fund granted in the will of the wealthy merchant Jonas Kjellberg. The all-girls elementary school was to provide education to make it possible for females to support themselves professionally.

Tomte by Frederik Wohlfart

In 1869, aged fifteen Jenny received her first art education at the Göteborgs Musei-, Rit- och Målarskola, today known as Konsthögskolan Valand, where one of her tutors was Fredrik Wohlfart, a Swedish genre painter and caricaturist from the Düsseldorf School. Wohlfahrt was best known for a series of paintings depicting popular figures of elves and it was he who inspired Jenny to depict images of tomte, one of the most popular Scandinavian mythological characters. Christmas in Sweden is celebrated in a very unique and different manner, owing to the differences in its culture and traditions. Christmas celebrations there begin on St. Lucia Day, which is on December 13. Tomte comes into picture after the Christmas dinner, when someone from the family dresses up like him. Tomte, believed to live in the forests or in a farm, is known for looking after the livestock of the farmers after the Christmas dinner. Tomte was converted to the Swedish Santa Claus over a period of time and soon began to deliver gifts as well.

Harvest Joy by Jenny Nyström

One day, in 1871, seventeen-year-old Jenny Nyström was visiting the Gothenburg Art Museum and was sitting and drawing. Another visitor to the museum that day was regional governor Albert Ehrensvärd who noticed her sketching and admired her work, so much so, he invited her to Stockholm to visit art galleries and to go to the city’s National Art Museum. She accepted the offer and whilst in Stockholm she was introduced to Christoffer Boklund, professor at the Stockholm Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

Jenny Nyström illustrated Viktor Rydberg’s poem “Tomten” in Ny Illustrerad Tidning in 1881.

In August 1873, two years after her first visit to Stockholm she returned to the city and enrolled at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and there she enjoyed life as an art student for the next eight years. Although Nyström had been brought up in a happy household it was not a rich upbringing and when she was at the Academy, she had to fund herself. To earn money, she would go out and sell subscriptions for the magazine, Ny Illustrerad Tidning, a publication for which she also provided illustrations. More importantly Jenny slowly built up a number of patrons from Gothenburg who bought her work, one of which was the regional governor Albert Ehrensvärd who guaranteed her the sum of 100 kroner a month.

See the source image

Gustav Vasa inför king Hans (Gustav Vasa as Child in front of King Hans) by Jenny Nyström (1881)

Another of her patrons was James Dickson, a Scottish-Swedish merchant, industrialist, banker and philanthropist who was based in Gothenburg. She also received an annual stipend from the Academy from 1877 onwards. Nyström fared well at the Academy and in 1881, she received the highest commendation available: the royal gold medal for her historically themed painting Gustav Vasa inför king Hans (Gustav Vasa as Child in front of King Hans). The royal medal provided opportunities for scholarships abroad and success for the students. The motifs that were ranked highest were the biblical, mythological and historical last came folk life depictions, landscape painting and still lifes.

*From my Atelier in Paris by Jenny Nyström (1884)*

In July 1882, she was awarded one thousand Swedish Krona from the Academy’s special support fund and with this money she was able to travel to Paris. Paris being looked upon as the centre of the art world was very popular with foreign artists and many Swedish artists lived in Paris such as Carl Larsson, his wife Karin and Anders Zorn. Unable to gain entrance to the French Academy of Fine Arts due to its male-only policy, Jenny enrolled at the Académie Colarossi in November and then the Académie Julian. While in Paris, she painted diligently so as to have her work accepted by the Salon. In 1884 her painting From my Atelier in Paris was exhibited at that year’s Salon.

The Convalescent by Jenny Nyström via DailyArt app, your daily dose of art getdailyart.com — *The Convalescent by Jenny Nyström (1884)*

In 1884 she also completed 0ne of my favourite of her works, The Convalescent. Around the turn of the 20th century, convalescing women and girls were a popular theme in visual art. In her painting The Convalescent, Jenny Nyström has chosen to depict the subject from the narrative perspective of the classicist tradition. We see before us an idealised young female figure at centre of the work, hovering between life and death. In stark contrast, next to her, we see the shamelessly healthy-looking and pretty girl standing by her side. The invalid looks upwards, probably praying for good health and trusting her fate in God’s hands. The picture is full of overt symbols, like the dead potted plant set against the bouquet of living flowers. The compositional pattern, which is centred on the histrionic body language and facial expressions of the figures, has its roots in an older anecdotal tradition. In early 19th-century genre painting, we often see figures posing as they do here, as if being in a stage spotlight, creating a sense of distance. The image of a convalescing female became a symbol of subordination, of the fragility of “womanliness”, and hence proof of women’s inability to participate in public life. These pictures can be seen as a reaction to the emancipation of women at that time and an attempt to return them to the home and the private sphere.

In 1880, whilst still a student at the Academy she attended a student concert at Katarina Church in Stockholm. where she met her future husband, Daniel Stoopendaal. He was a medical student. In the Autumn of 1884, the couple got engaged. Jenny Nyström moved back to Stockholm at the start of the year in 1886 and worked as an illustrator for several different publishers. On May 24^th 1887 she married Daniel Stoopendaal in the Adolf Fredrik church, and that autumn they moved into a large city apartment on Tegnérgatan. In 1889, a few years after her mother had died, Jenny Nyström’s father moved in with her and her husband. Their first child Curt was born on June 25^th 1893. Sadly, Daniel was ill for most of his life with tuberculosis. He never completed his medical studies and Jenny was the breadwinner of the family supporting them through the sale of her paintings. It was a hard struggle for her to sell her work. In the end she had to sell her work to different publishers and other employers.

See the source image — vi två (The two of us) by Jenny Nyström (1895)

From the time her son Curt was born he often made an appearance in her paintings wearing a red skull-cap and dressed in a “kolt” (traditional outfit). She also painted a portrait of herself with two-year-old Curt in 1895, which she called Mor och son. Today it is known as Vi två (The Two of Us).

*Brita and Bertil by Jenny Nyström (1911)*

It was around this time that she began to concentrate on illustrating a large number of children’s books and historical novels. She also painted cover images for newspapers and journals. She had a breakthrough in 1911 when she signed a contract to make greeting cards for Axel Eliasson’s publishing house, but this meant that she needed to produce a certain number of watercolours each month as a background illustration for the cards. These illustrations gained great exposure due to the appealing nature of her drawings. The Swedish publication series Barnbiblioteket Saga, which was initiated by schoolteachers in the late 19th century was one of the most ambitious and extensive reading promotion projects ever undertaken in Sweden. It looked into the world of children’s books In Barnbiblioteket’s Saga, 1910, a biographical entry on Jenny Nyström reveals why she chose to illustrate children’s stories

“…The reason I mainly illustrate children’s books is probably because I have always loved children and have always wanted to show children something of the fair sunny land east of the sun and west of the moon, beauty which has remained in my memory from my childhood in Kalmar. Maybe now you can also understand why I prefer to draw beautiful images…”

Jenny Nyström carried on with her painting and illustrative work until the end. She died in her home in Stockholm on 17 January 1946 aged 91. Of her last minutes on this earth her long-time housekeeper described her passing as:

“…It was like blowing out a candle…”

Larger memorial image loading... — *Jenny Nyström’s last resting place*

Jenny Nyström was buried at Norra cemetery beside her husband Daniel Stoopendaal and her father Daniel Nyström. Seventy five years after her death her illustrated cards are still being printed and her academic artwork and her watercolours fetch high prices at the larger auction houses.

Julia Beck, the Swedish Impressionist

The blog today features the very talented nineteenth century Swedish female landscape and portrait painter, Julia Augusta Lovisa Beck.

The Artist, Julia Beck by Richard Bergh (1883)

Julia Beck was born in Stockholm on December 20^th 1853. Her father, Franz Beck, was a German immigrant from the Rhineland-Palatinate who had set himself up as a successful bookbinder. Her mother was Charlotte Julia Beck (née Carlsson). She had a brother, Johan Viktor, who was one year older than her. Viktor helped out at his father’s workshop and would later become part of the father’s bookbinding business, whereas Julia concentrated on her painting. She initially enrolled on courses in wood engraving and decorative painting at the local Slöjdskolan (School of handicraft). When she was eighteen years old she became a student at the Konstakademie, the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and enrolled in a five-year state-run art course. It had only been since eight years before that the Academy had begun to accept female students and she was assigned to the Ladies Section which although the tutors were the same as those who taught the male students, the females had fewer lectures and were taught in a different building. She and her fellow female art students, known as the “painter-girls” mixed with the male students and Julia was instrumental in setting up a student society and a student newspaper, Palettskrap.

For aspiring young artists the place to be was Paris, which had taken on the mantle of the leading art centre of Europe. Julia wasted no time after completing her course at the Academy to travel to Paris to avail herself of the best art tuition and in 1880 she had great success when she had her self portrait exhibited at the annual Salon de Paris, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The painting depicting her in a plumed hat was admired for its depth of colour and realistic depiction.

Woman Dressing, on a Stool by Julia Beck

In 1881 Julia Beck, who was then twenty-eight years old, enrolled at the Académie Julian where she received tuition from Léon Bonnat and Jean Léon Gérôme. The Académie Julian was one of the the main art establishment in Paris that accepted female students. The other state-run art establishments in Paris did not accept women as students until the 1890s. The influential École des Beaux-Arts did not begin admitting women until 1897. From studying under those two much-heralded artists she left the Académie Julian and went to study at the school run by the Belgian artist, Alfred Stevens.

Julia Beck shared spacious lodgings in Paris with four Scandinavian painters, the Swedish painters, Hildegard Thorell, Anna Norstedt and Elizabeth Keyser and the Norwegian, Harriet Backer. Like many artists of the time who were living and studying in Paris, Julia liked to spend time in the tranquillity of the rural environment which could be found to the south of the capital. The small village of Barbizon, near the Forest of Fontainebleau, was popular with artists between 1830 and 1870 who were looking for something different from the formalism of Academic training and sought creativeness directly from nature and suddenly scenes of nature became the subject of paintings rather than simply an add-on backdrop.

River Landscape from Montcourt by Julia Beck (1885)

Julia was one of the first Scandinavian artists to visit another artist colony, twenty kilometres south of Barbizon, at Grez sur Loing. It was the rural village, which was to attract many American and Scandinavian painters, including many of the Skagen artists.

The Bridge at Grez-sur-Loing by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1850-60)

In one of Margie White’s excellent blogs, American Girls Art Club in Paris…and Beyond, she talks about the attraction of the artists’ colony:

“…Grez became a popular summer travel destination for American artists in Paris after a train station and a new hotel were built. In 1860. Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s painting View of the Loing at Grez (1850-60) may have worked like a Grez travel poster, inducing many art students to come and try to paint it themselves. Word about Grez circulated through the Academie Julian in Paris as well as Carolus-Duran’s studio…’

Julia Beck completed a painting featuring the area entitled Gréz zur Nemours in 1885. It was a good example of the work she favoured at that time. She often depicted glistening water reflections in a romantic grey-scale which reflected verdant trees in full leaf and occasionally the odd birds but rarely do people feature in her landscapes. It was all about her love for nature and how she captured it during periods of ever-changing light during various times of the day and the differing seasons. There was a kind of meditative atmosphere to her depictions achieved by her choice of colours. There is a definite hint of Impressionism, which we saw in the work of Claude Monet. In the foreground, we see reeds and foliage depicted in a style similar to that seen in Japanese and Chinese art, which was very popular in Europe at the time.

If we study her work we can see she has carefully examined the rural lands of the area both at dusk and dawn and by doing so saw how the light from the sun and the shadows differed immensely. She had a special attraction to depicting motionless waters with verdant backdrops. She liked to depict how the light fell on the water of slow-moving rivers and lakes. There can be no doubt she was influenced and stimulated by the paintings of the Impressionist artists. Her plein air depictions were simply as she saw them and were often expressed in pinks, turquoise and green.

Her paintings were not always set with bright sunny conditions. One of her most moody and inspiring works is an oil painting entitled The Raven Swamp, in which we see ravens in both the foreground and background circling an almost-stagnant stretch of water. What adds to the sombre mood of the painting is the way in which the lake and the sky have the same colour. How would you describe it? Muted, melancholic or simply a study of quiet beauty?

L’Etang Saint-Cucufa, près Vaucresson by Julia Beck

Julia Beck, who lived in a rented studio with her friends in Paris and had spent the summers at Grez sur Loing was constantly on the move and would often return to her homeland, Sweden, on many trips during the 1870s and 1880s. Maybe she became disillusioned with her nomadic lifestyle and wanted to put down roots so, in 1888, she decided to set up a permanent home in France. She chose Vaucresson, a small town in the western suburbs of Paris in the Hauts-de-Seine department, a few miles from the centre of the capital. It was close to rural areas, which were often the subject of her artworks. A painting entitled L’Etang (The Pond)Saint-Cucufa, près Vaucresson depicts an area close to Vaucresson. The wood of Saint-Cucufa, also known as the forest of Malmaison , is a wood and a pond in the department of Hauts-de-Seine managed by the French National Forest Office.

Her reasoning behind making her permanent home in France rather than back in Sweden was probably due to the fact that the Parisian art market was buoyant and at this time French art critics were in love with Scandinavian art. Vaucresson was also not a long train ride from the Belgian border and the towns of Bruges and Gent where she had a number of clients. When asked why she did not return to live in Sweden she replied:

“…In Sweden I could never learn to paint the sun – it is so hard to see, the air is clear, oui, but in Normandy the atmosphere is misty and there I could see the sun glittering in the haze and on the sea…”

Nénuphars (also known as Water Lilies) by Julia Beck (1931)

Julia Beck remained unmarried all her life. She had had many female Scandinavian artist friends who, once married, had given up their art to look after their home and family. That course of action was not for her as her true love was her art. One of her paintings she completed in the last years of her life was her 1931 work entitled Nénuphars (Water Lillies) which once again reminds us of Monet and Impressionism.

Wild Flowers in French Meadow by Julia Beck

France appreciated her artistic talent and in 1934 she was awarded the Legion d’Honneur. She exhibited widely in Paris and abroad and received a number of medals for her paintings. Sadly the Swedish art fraternity did not take kindly to her abandonment of her country and she was not allowed to exhibit in the Swedish pavilion at the 1900 World Fair in Paris.

Julia Beck died in Vaucresson on September 21^st 1935, aged 81.

Anders Zorn. Part 3

Some biographers have maintained that Zorn’s personality was somewhat loud and garish and it is that personal trait which can often be seen in the animated, broad sweeping distinctive brushstrokes of his works. By the beginning of the 1880s Zorn had acquired a self-assured style, and with his popular artwork, he was on an artistic journey. As in so many instances in the early life of aspiring artists, who were being academically trained, Zorn’s view on how art should be taught ended with him having disagreements with the director of the Royal Academy of Fine Art regarding the strict curriculum and in January 1881, after a final divergence of opinion with the Academy’s director regarding the school’s authoritarian and inflexible curriculum, Zorn decided to resign. Zorn, by this time, had built up a strong set of student followers and many followed his lead and also left the Academy.

*Une Première (*The First Time) by Anders Zorn (1888)

Having had great success with his painting such as his gouache painting, Une Première, which won him a Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, his standing as a plein air artist soared. There was nothing new about an artist depicting a nude with a backdrop of nature but Zorn’s depictions were quite different to those academic artists who liked to have a mythological theme in their works, full of nymphs prancing through forests and fields!

The nudes in Zorn’s paintings were depicted differently. There was a realism about his subjects. The naked women were simply depicted as healthy, ordinary Nordic women who were merely part of nature. A good example of this is his 1908 painting entitled The Hinds.

In Wikstrom’s Studio by Anders Zorn (1889)

One of his most beautiful works featuring a female nude is his 1889 painting entitled In Wikströms Studio. At this time Zorn and his wife Emma were living in Montmartre where he had his studio. He and his wife often entertained intellectuals and artists, especially artists from Scandinavia, who, like him, had decided to ply their trade in the French capital. One such artist was the Finnish sculptor, Emil Wikström, and he and Zorn became close friends. The two men shared a fascination for the female nude and the search for the perfect body to paint or sculpt and the two men would often use the same models for their work. The painting, as the title suggests, was painted by Zorn at Wikström studio. The young woman, a veritable beauty with luxuriant red hair and an almost golden skin tone, is seen standing next to a yet-to-be-completed image and is in the process of undressing prior to posing for the artist. There is a sense of unhappiness about the scene as if we believe the young woman has been forced into taking her clothes off. There is also a feeling that we are simply voyeurs and in a way, we are simply spying on the woman unbeknown to her, which adds a touch of both censure and hint of eroticism to the work. Despite her seemingly unaware that she is being watched, we feel that we are standing before the work unable to move, gazing at the woman in total silence in case she detects us.

Zorn was contented with his standard of work and a quote published in Société des Peintres-Graveurs: printmaking, 1889–1897 quoted Zorn:

“…I never spent much time thinking about others’ art. I felt that if I wanted to become something, then I had to go after nature with all my interest and energy, seek what I loved about it, and desire to steal its secret and beauty. I was entitled to become as great as anyone else, and in that branch of art so commanded by me, watercolour painting, I considered myself to have already surpassed all predecessors and contemporaries…”

Self portrait with Model by Anders Zorn (1896)

Anders Zorn in the latter years of the nineteenth century continued with his favoured motifs, portraits including his own self-portraits and nude paintings of women. One such work, entitled Self-portrait with Model, which he completed in 1896, is a juxtaposition of his two favoured motifs. In the work, we see Zorn resting in front of his easel, smoking a cigarette as he takes a short break from his work. His partly dressed model is seen lying slumped in the background. Her eyes are fixed upon him and it is this gaze, which gives us a slight feeling of tension between artist and sitter. An etching derived from this painting was completed by Zorn in 1899 and can be seen at the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.

Self-portrait in a wolfskin by Anders Zorn (1915)

In the early 1900s, Anders Zorn continued with his portraiture and one exceptional example was his Self-portrait in Wolfskin in oils, which he completed in 1915.

A Toast in the Idun Society by Anders Zorn (1892)

Another work of portraiture that is worth a mention is Zorn’s meticulous work entitled A Toast in the Idun Society, which is housed in the National Museum of Stockholm. In this work, we see Harald Wieselgren, an influential intellectual, portrayed as the animated and scholarly speaker. In 1862, Wieselgren was the founder of the Idun Society and throughout his life, he was a leading figure in the Society. The male Idun Society was known for its closed bourgeois atmosphere. Wieselgren was a writer, a librarian at the Royal Library, and for several decades a driving force of the Idun society. This cultural association for men still survives today and since 1885 there has been a female equivalent Society known as Nya Idun.

Skerikulla (Skeri Girl) by Anders Zorn (1912)

Undoubtedly, Zorn was best known for his paintings but his etchings were extremely popular in their own right. It is said that his etchings realised higher prices than Rembrandts during his lifetime. In total, he completed almost 300 etchings, many of which were associated with his oil and watercolour works. One such is his 1912 etching entitled Skerikulla. The word Skerikulla means “Skeri girl” in the local Mora dialect, which was spoken by Zorn. Zorn’s model for this work was a local girl, Emma Andersson, and Zorn has portrayed her as a happy young woman with a beaming smile. There is a feeling of energy about her demeanour, which we see in the middle of a laugh. It is a tender depiction. Later that year, Zorn also completed an oil painting of Emma.

Girl with a Cigarette II by Anders Zorn (1891)

Another exquisite etching is his 1891 one entitled Girl with a Cigarette II. Such simplicity, such perfection. There are a number of versions of this etching. One can be found at the Met in New York while another is housed in the Art Institute of Chicago.

We often compare portraiture when we consider the talent of various portrait artists. I wonder if portrait artists ever compare their talent against that of fellow portraitists. I consider this possibility having just read an anecdote on The ARTery website with regards the portraiture of Zorn and that of his contemporary John Singer Sargent.

Mrs Walter Bacon (Virginia Purdy Barker) by John Singer Sargent (1896)

The story goes that in 1897, Edward Rathbone Bacon, a powerful American railway magnate, challenged Anders Zorn to come up with a superior portrait of his sister-in-law, Virginia Purdy, that John Singer Sargent had painted in 1896. The Sargent portrait had Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon standing, in a Spanish gown, leaning against a wall. Sargent’s painting is housed at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon (Virginia Purdy Barker) by Anders Zorn (1897)

Zorn took up the challenge but chose a more intimate slant. Virginia sat for Zorn in 1897, during one of his visits to America. We see the lady seated indoors wearing a satin gown. It is a masterpiece of fluid brushwork and soft colour harmonies. He depicted his sitter in a moment of unpretentious elegance, as she hugs her collie dog.

So which was the better? Who won the wager? Well, according to Zorn’s memoirs (!) Sargent, on seeing Zorn’s painting at the Paris Salon in 1897, conceded that Zorn’s work was the winner. However what should be taken from this story is the glimpse into the competitive rivalry between two of the great portraitists of their time as they both strived for portrait commissions from the same slice of American Gilded Age high society in the 1880s with its lavishness and high spending elites.

A woman features in another work by Zorn. It is his Night Effect work, which he painted in 1895 and depicts a night time scene featuring a life-sized portrait of a young woman. She is wearing a red dress, (which one believes implies she is engaged in prostitution) and can be seen leaning against a tree, possibly suffering from an excess of alcohol. It is a life-sized depiction measuring 160 x 106cms (63 x 42ins).

Statue of Gustav Vasa by Anders Zorn atop a hill in the town of Mora

When Zorn grew up, his interest in art was more to do with his love of sculpture before he concentrated on his painting. Maybe the combination of his love of sculpture and his love for his country resulted in one of his most famous creations, the statue of King Gustav Vasa, which Zorn created and was unveiled in 1903 in Zorn’s birthplace and home in the central Swedish county of Dalarna and the town of Mora. Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family was later known as Gustav Vasa. He travelled to the province of Dalarna to rally the peasantry to fight against King Christian II of Denmark, the ruler of the Kalmar Union, a confederation of three countries, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In 1523, Gustav Vasa made an impassioned speech to the men of Mora urging them to stand with him against the forces of the Kalmar Union. Gustav lead the rebel movement and his triumphant entry into Stockholm in June 1523 was followed by Sweden’s final secession from the Kalmar Union which was dissolved on June 6th, 1523 and Gustav became King Gustav I of Sweden.

House, garden and fountain – the sculpture “Morgonbad” (Morning bath) – of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn. Mora, Sweden.

Zorn also sculpted a number of portraits and smaller statues, among them is one known as Morning Bath which he completed in 1909. It is a figure of a girl who holds a sponge in her hands from which a fountain spouts and is situated in front of the home where Zorn used to live.

The King of Sweden, King Oscar II by Anders Zorn (1898)

Anders Zorn used the popularity of his art to fund many charities. One example of this was the holding of a small exhibition featuring thirty-five of his works at the Artists Association in Stockholm in the Spring of 1918. The sale of his works at the end of the exhibition raised 12,642 Swedish Krona, which he donated to the Swedish Red Cross. In May that year, he donated twenty thousand Swedish krona to Västmanlands Dalanation. Västmanlands-Dala nation, usually referred to simply as V-Dala, is one of the 13 “Student Nations” at Uppsala University, in Sweden. The “nation”, was intended for students from the provinces of Dalarna and Vastmanland, the former being the area of Zorn’s homeland. On June 6th, 1918, Zorn became Knight Commander of the Northern Pole Star order, first class. The Order of the Polar Star is a Swedish order of chivalry which was created by King Frederick in 1748 and was a reward for Swedish and foreign “civic merits, for devotion to duty, for science, literary, learned and useful works and for new and beneficial institutions”.

Sweden’s most expensive painting ever; sold at 26 million sek on June 3rd, 2010.

During the summer of 1920, Zorn spent much time sailing around the Stockholm archipelago and spending many nights celebrating on the island of Sandheim. However, Zorn was not well and was in constant pain and could not paint during that summer. After the summer sailing was over he returned to Mora, a tired and ailing man.  Zorn was rushed to hospital in August 1920 for emergency abdominal treatment and was operated on at Mora hospital. Sadly Zorn had contracted blood poisoning in the lower abdomen and died on August 22nd^, 1920, aged 60.

The Zorn Collections, or Zornsamlingarna, is a Swedish state museum, located in Mora,

Zorn’s wife Emma lived another twenty-two years, dying on January 4th, 1942. To honour the memory of her husband, she had worked to create a museum, which opened in 1939. She completed the existing collection by re-purchasing a number of paintings that he had sold and at the same time, she continued the philanthropic work that she and her husband had initiated.

Anders Zorn’s atelier at his house, Zorngården in Mora

The popularity of Anders Zorn’s art during his lifetime made him very wealthy and, over a number of years, he bought the art of his contemporaries and amassed a considerable collection. In their joint will, Anders and Emma Zorn donated their entire holdings to the Swedish State, including their home, Zorngården, which still remains today much as it was at the time of Emma Zorn’s death in 1942.

As usual much of the information I gleaned for the three blogs on Anders Zorn came from many internet websites but one of which is well worth looking at if you want a full and concise biography of this great Swedish artist. The website is:

http://www.alsing.com/zorn_eng/index.html

Anders Zorn. Part 2 – America

In 1896 the Zorns returned to Sweden and went to live at their home, Zorngården, in Mora. Anders’ wife, Emma, immersed herself in the life of the small town and became involved in many different local activities including setting up a small local library and a small society where people could meet and practice their handicraft skills. She also founded the Zorn Children’s Home and the local community was indebted to her for the setting up of a public school for adults in Mora which came into being as a result of the active participation and financial support from her and her husband. Anders and Emma’s relationship is believed to have changed somewhat during the last decade of the nineteenth century. It appears they grew apart, found it difficult to agree on many things, and their marriage changed from one based on deep mutual love, as it was at the beginning, to one of friendly companionship.

Above all else, it was Anders’ skill as a portrait artist that gained him international acclamation. He had the innate capacity to depict his sitters’ individual character and this can be seen in his 1888 portrait of the French journalist and politician, Antonin Proust.

Another fine portrait by Zorn was his 1889 one featuring Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin a French actor who was better known as Coquelin Cadet, to distinguish him from his brother. Zorn believed that a portrait should be painted in an environment that was natural for the model. An artificial studio environment was not to his taste.

At around about the time Anders and Emma settled in Paris and he started to complete paintings which depict not only water, one of his favourite motifs, but nudes either in the water or on the banks of rivers. One such work was his 1888 work entitled Outdoors, which is currently housed in the Gothenburg Art Museum.

Another painting by Zorn depicting nudes and water is his poignant work featuring a mother and her young child whom she is trying to instill in him/her a love of water. This 1888 painting is entitled The First Time and is housed at the Ateneum, the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki.

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina

Zorn completed a number of genre paintings, which focused on the depiction of light and shadow and if you are in North Carolina, near the town of Asheville, then you should make your way to the Biltmore Estate and see one such painting by him. The main residence of the estate is a Châteauesque-style mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately-owned house in the United States and there, on the second-floor living area, you will find a beautiful genre painting by Anders Zorn, entitled The Waltz.

It is a genre painting in as much it captures life at a ball. Zorn completed it in 1891. It is a romantic depiction in which we see dance partners gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes but it is all about the artist’s clever use of light and shadow in his portrayal of differing light conditions. The background is bathed in bright light and the ladies’ white dresses glow beautifully. This is in stark contrast to the light conditions in the right middle ground. It is darker in this area of the ballroom, with a dark curtain as a background, which further cuts off the bright-light gaiety of the main dance floor. With the darkness comes intimacy and this sense can be seen in the eyes of the male dancer in the foreground as he peers longingly into the eyes of his partner. Behind them, a man sits alone at a table and watches the dancers. Is he truly alone? Does he wish he was on the dance floor with a beloved partner? The third section of differing light is from the lamp on the table close to the lone man. From its glow, which is reflected on the floor, we can see another couple dancing and catch a faint glimpse of tables in the background. Zorn completed the painting in 1893 and on show at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago that year where it was purchased by George Vanderbilt.

Another of Zorn’s paintings around this time, which focused on the depiction of light and shadows, is one that is held at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the Fenway–Kenmore neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is entitled The Omnibus and Zorn completed it in 1892. We see five people seated on the bus with their backs to the windows. Look how he has portrayed the light from outside streaming through the windows. It is reflected on the neck of the girl in the foreground and the parcel she holds on her knee. The clothes of the travellers are dark and contrast with the splashes of light in the windows.

During the summers, Zorn spent most of the time at home in Mora and he painted prolifically. One painting of this era which I particularly like is his Realist painting entitled Our Daily Bread, which he completed around 1886 and is now housed at the National Museum in Stockholm. In the painting we see an elderly peasant sitting on a dried-up riverbank gazing forlornly at the ground. Besides her, there is a loaf of bread and a boiling cauldron is hung precariously on a wooden pole, which is resting on the steep banks of the stream. A young child approaches carrying kindling, which will be added to the fire under the boiling cauldron.

1893 Chicago World’s Fair Swedish Building

The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, often called the Chicago World’s Fair was a world’s fair, which was held in Chicago to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the New World in 1492. Anders Zorn, whose status as a leading Swedish artist, was selected by the Swedish government to act as the superintendent of the Swedish art exhibition at the Fair. Zorn travelled to the United States that year and remained in the country for twelve months. During the next fifteen years, he would revisit America six more times, usually between autumn and spring allowing him time to return to his beloved Sweden in the summer. Zorn loved America and the lifestyle it offered him during his frequent trips to the country but more importantly, it presented him with many portrait commissions, including numerous statesmen and society figures and those of three US presidents, Grover Cleveland, William Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt.

President Grover Cleveland by Anders Zorn (1899)

One such portrait was his 1899 portrait of Stephen Grover Cleveland, the American Democratic politician, and lawyer who became the twenty-second president of the United States in 1885, held office for four years before being defeated by the Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, but then in 1892 he again won the race to the White House to become the twenty-fourth US President. Zorn painted this portrait two years after Cleveland had completed his second term. The sittings for the portrait, which lasted for several days, took place at the former president’s estate in Princeton, New Jersey. Zorn and Cleveland got on well during the sittings and the ex-President was well satisfied with the portrait, joking to a friend:

“… As for my ugly mug, I think the artist has ‘struck it off’ in great shape…”

Frances Folsom Cleveland by Anders Zorn (1899)That same year, 1899, Zorn completed a portrait of Grover Cleveland’s wife, Frances Folsom Cleveland. Francis Folsom was the daughter of Oscar Folsom, a lawyer and long-time close friend of Grover Cleveland. Cleveland first met Frances Folsom shortly after she was born in 1864 and, when her father was killed in a carriage accident in 1875, the court appointed Cleveland administrator of the estate and he oversaw her upbringing after her father’s death. After High School, Frances attended Wells College in Aurora, New York, and it was around this time when Frances was twenty-one that the relationship between Grover Cleveland and Frances developed romantically. The couple married at the White House on June 2nd^, 1886. Frances was twenty-one years old and her husband was forty-nine.

Another American President to feature in one of Zorn’s paintings was Republican, William Howard Taft who became the twenty-seventh US President in 1909. The portrait of Taft, which is housed at the White House, was painted by Zorn during his last visit to America in 1911.

The courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a leading American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. She was the daughter of wealthy linen-merchant David Stewart and Adelia Smith Stewart. On the death of her father, she inherited $1.75 million and around this time she started to buy European fine art. In 1903 her own museum in Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which she had built to house her extensive art collection, was opened to the public. She was friends with many artists, such as James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent and during Anders Zorn’s first visit to America, he travelled to Boston where he met Gardner. Through this meeting developed a friendship and soon Zorn became popular with Boston’s wealthy artistic society. In 1894 Zorn painted a portrait of Isabella Gardner at the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, one of her favourite haunts, which had become a meeting place for a circle of American and English expatriates in Venice.

Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice by Anders Zorn (1894)

Zorn’s depiction of Isabella is a joy to behold. Look how he has managed to depict her vivacity and total joie de vivre as she moves into the dining room from the balcony, which overlooks the Grand Canal, imploring her dinner guests to come on to the terrace and witness the beauty of the late evening and the excitement of the ensuing firework display. Her arms are outstretched. She is beside herself with the joy of the moment. Anne O’Hagan Shinn, a well-known American feminist, suffragist, journalist, and writer of short stories, on seeing the painting described it as:

“…a flamelike incarnation of vigour and life – impression helped, doubtless, by the wonderful yellow gown which swathes the strong and supple figure that seem to leap from the canvas…”

………………to be continued