Gustaf Fjæstad

Gustaf Fjæstad
Scanned by user AlphaZeta, photographer unknown, Public domain

The master of hoarfrost.

Gustaf Fjæstad painted snow and hoarfrost in Värmland so precisely that he was called “the hoarfrost painter”. He led the Rackstad colony.

Gustaf Fjæstad was born in 1868 in Stockholm. He studied briefly at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1890s and then worked as an assistant to Bruno Liljefors and Carl Larsson. From Liljefors he learned to observe nature closely.

In 1897 he moved to the Arvika area in Värmland. There a group of artists and craftspeople gathered by Lake Racken in what is known as the Rackstad colony. Fjæstad became its natural centre. He married the textile artist Maja Fjæstad, and together with others they created weavings and furniture in a local version of Art Nouveau.

Fjæstad’s speciality was winter. He painted snow, hoarfrost on branches and ice-free channels in the rivers where the water reflects the trees. He was so skilled at rendering the texture and shadows of snow that he was nicknamed “the hoarfrost painter”. He often painted outdoors in the cold and sometimes used photographs as a basis. The pictures have a clear decorative rhythm, with sinuous lines typical of Art Nouveau.

He also made furniture with carved decoration. His paintings became very popular and were widely reproduced.

Fjæstad died in 1948. His works are shown at the Rackstad Museum in Arvika, among other places. He is considered one of the most original Swedish painters of nature around 1900.