1. Carl Larsson
Carl Larsson (1853 –1919)
was a Swedish painter,
illustrator and designer.
His many paintings include
oils, watercolours, and
frescoes.
Larsson also drew several
sequential picture stories,
thus being one of Swedish
comic creators.
Larsson was born on May 28, 1853 in Gamla Stan, the old town
in Stockholm.
2. His parents were extremely poor,
and his childhood was not happy.
When he was 13 years old, his
teacher persuaded him to apply
for Principskolan, the
preparatory department of the
Royal Academy of Arts, and he
was admitted.
In 1869, at the age of sixteen, he
was promoted to the "antique
school" of the Academy. There,
Larsson gained confidence, and
even became a central figure in
the Academy’s life.
3. Larsson earned his first medal in nude drawing. In the meantime, he was
working as a caricaturist for the humorous paper Kasper and as graphic
artist for the newspaper Ny Illustrerad Tidning.
After several years working as an illustrator,
Larsson moved to Paris in 1877, where he
worked with no success. Along with other
Swedish artists, Larsson cut himself off from
the radical new movements.
He settled down with his Swedish colleagues in 1882 in Grez-sur-Loing, a
Scandinavian artists' colony outside Paris. It was there that he met Karin
Bergöö, who soon became his wife. This was to be a turning point in
Larsson's life. In Grez, Larsson painted some of his most important works,
now in watercolour, very different technique from what he had previously
employed.
4. Carl and Karin Larsson had eight children; they became Larsson's favourite
models. Many of his watercolours portrait her wife and children: Suzanne,
Pontus, Lisbeth, Brita, Kersti and Esbjörn .
given a small
In 1888 they were offered a
house, Little Hyttnäs,.
Carl and Karin decorated and
furnished this house according
to their particular artistic taste
This house has become one of the most famous artist's homes in the world,
transmitting the artistic taste of its creators and making it a major line in
Swedish interior design. The descendants of Carl and Karin Larsson now own
this house and keep it open.
5. Larsson's popularity increased with
the development of colour
reproduction technology in the
1890s, when a book containing full
colour reproductions of his
watercolours was published in
Sweden, ´A Home´.
Using a much improved tecnhique,
the German publisher Langewiesche,
in 1909, offered a still better choice
of watercolours, drawings and text by
Carl Larsson. Titled Das Haus in der
Sonne (The House in the Sun), the
book immediately became one of the
German best-sellers – 40 000 copies
sold in three months, and more than
40 print runs produced up to 2001.
31. His last monumental work, Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice), a large oil painting
completed in 1915, was commissioned for a wall in the National Museum in
Stockholm. The fresco depicts the blót (sacrifice) of King Domalde at the Temple of
Uppsala, carried out at Midwinter - a central event of the pre-Christian Norse
mythology.
The Swedish king Domalde. sacrificed in order to avert a famine.
32.
33. Carl Larsson considered this his finest work .
Midvinterblot is now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts.