Einar Jolin

The playful naïve.

Einar Jolin was one of the Young Ones (De unga) and painted Stockholm and its people in an elegant, naïve style.

Einar Jolin was born in Stockholm in 1890. He first studied at the Artists' Association school and in 1908 went to Paris, where, like Isaac Grünewald, he attended Henri Matisse's painting school. There he learned to work with bright colours, clean outlines and simplified forms.

He took part in the exhibitions of the Young Ones (De unga), and in 1915 he exhibited at the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin together with Grünewald and Sigrid Hjertén. He soon developed a style of his own, calmer and more ordered than his friends'. His pictures are clearly drawn and look almost naïve, with carefully placed figures, houses and boats and a cool, elegant palette.

Stockholm was his great subject. He painted Strömmen, quays, bridges and city views, often seen from above or at a distance, so that the city becomes like a playful model. He also painted portraits, flowers, still lifes and elegant women, and he himself was known as an ornate and eloquent dandy in Stockholm society.

Jolin lived a long life and was productive for many decades. He died in 1976. His art became popular with a wide public, and he is now regarded as one of the most personal of the Young Ones, a painter who combined modernist simplification with a charming and slightly ironic delight in storytelling.

• The avant-garde
• De unga and the breakthrough of Modernism