Carl Larsson

Larsson was born on May 28, 1853 in Gamla Stan, the old town in Stockholm.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

In 1888 they were offered a house, Little Hyttnäs,.

Carl and Karin decorated and furnished this house according to their particular artistic taste

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.

Works of Carl Larsson

A Studio's Idill Atelje-idyll1885

His wife Karin withSuzanne

A Lady Reading a Newspaper,1886

Girl by a Flowering Hawthorn Bush (Flicka i blommande hagtorn),1887

Karin and Brita, 1893

Ulf and Pontus,1894

Flowers on the windowsill, 1894

The Verandah , 1895

When the Children have Gone to Bed, 1895

Breakfast under the big birch (Frukost under stora björken), 1897.

Brita and Her Sled, 1897

Lisbeth fishing, 1898

Brita as Iduna( Iðunn ),1901

In Norse mythology, Iðunn is a goddess associated with apples and youth.

Apple Harvest, 1903

My Eldest DaughterSuzanne1904

Lisbeth reading,1904

Girl Weaving Red Ribbon,1905

In the Carpenter Shop, 1905

Threshing, 1906

Model writing postcards, 1906

Karin on the shore, 1908

Evening Before The Journey To England, 1909

Correspondence, 1912

Doing his homework, 1912

Woman Lying on a Bench, 1913

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.

Carl Larsson considered this his finest work .

Midvinterblot is now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts.

Two more works

Spring (Våren), 1907

On the grass (Grongraset) , 1902

Useful link:http://www.clg.se/encarl.aspx

Many of Carl Larsson works can be found at

Goteborgs Konstmuseum SwedenNational Museum in Stockholm

© Mário Ricca, 2013