Nils Forsberg

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Nils Forsberg
Nils Forsberg - from Svenskt Porträttgalleri XX.png
Born
Nils Forsberg

17 December 1842[1]
Riseberga, Malmö
Died8 November 1934(1934-11-08) (aged 91)[1]
Helsingborg
NationalitySwedish
Known forPainter

Nils Forsberg (17 December 1842 – 8 November 1934) was a Swedish painter who lived and worked in Paris for much of his career.[2]

Life[]

Forsberg was born in a small village called Riseberga, in the province of Scania.[3][1] The son of a peasant, he spent his early years in farming, then was apprenticed to a house-painter at Göteborg.[3] He made a statue of Minerva which procured for him a government stipend which enabled him to go to Paris in 1867.[3] In Paris he was a student in the atelier of Léon Bonnat.[4][3][5] Art historian Richard Muther would later write that Forsberg "became the Swedish Bonnat".[6] The siege of Paris, during which he enlisted in the Ambulance Department, afforded him opportunities for studying and sketching the scenes that he observed.[3] In 1877 he exhibited Family of Acrobats before the Circus Director, now in the Gothenburg Museum of Art.[3] This work, which typifies Forsberg's commitment to social reform, shows the influence of the French Realists in its depiction of child labor.[2]

Nils Forsberg Death of a Hero (1888)

In 1888 he received the gold medal at the Salon for his painting The Death of a Hero,[5][6][7] now in the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm.[8] The culmination of his ambition to renew traditional history painting with a vigorous contemporary realism, it took him several years to complete, and was inspired by his experiences during the Franco-Prussian War.[2] Afterwards he devoted himself more especially to historical subjects.[3] In 1904 he returned to Sweden, where he lived in Helsingborg.[2] He died in Helsingborg on 8 November 1934.[1][2]

He had a son, Nils Forsberg the younger (b 1870), who was also a painter.[2]

Permanent collections[]

In total, 25 of Forsberg's works are held by the Nationalmuseum.[8] Several of his works, including the 1900 painting Gustaf II Adolf before Battle of Lützen,[9] are held by the Gothenburg Museum of Art.[10]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d Oscar Harald Wieselgren (1944). Svenska män och kvinnor: biografisk uppslagsbok. Bonnier. p. 555.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Gunnarsson, T. (2003). "Forsberg, Nils, the elder". Grove Art Online.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Forsberg, Nils". In Gilman, Daniel Coit; Peck, Harry Thurston; Colby, Frank Moore (1907). The New International Encyclopædia. 8. Dodd, Mead, and Company. p. 58. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  4. ^ Fae Brauer (8 July 2014). Rivals and Conspirators: The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-4438-6370-4.
  5. ^ a b "Nils Forsberg". Benezit Dictionary of Artists (2006). ISBN 9780199773787.
  6. ^ a b Richard Muther (1896). The History of Modern Painting. Henry and Company. p. 355.
  7. ^ "Fine Arts in 1888". In Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events. D. Appleton & Co. 1889. p. 332.
  8. ^ a b "Nils Forsberg". Nationalmuseum.
  9. ^ Jonas Jonson (2016). Nathan Soderblom: Called to Serve. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-8028-7308-8.
  10. ^ "Nils Forsberg". Gothenburg Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 2018-06-03. Retrieved 2020-12-06.

Further reading[]

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