August Malmström
The illustrator of tales and legends.
August Malmström painted fairies and folk subjects and illustrated The Tales of Ensign Stål and Frithiof's Saga. His Dancing Fairies is a Swedish classic.
August Malmström was born in 1829 in Motala in Östergötland. His family was not well off, and he had to struggle to get an education. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and later made study trips to Paris and Italy.
Malmström became one of the best-loved artists in 19th-century Sweden. He drew his subjects from Norse mythology, folklore and Swedish history. His best-known painting is Dancing Fairies (1866) in the Nationalmuseum. It shows pale, half-transparent fairies dancing over a meadow at dusk as the mist rises. The picture became a symbol of Swedish National Romanticism and has been reproduced countless times.
He was also a highly prolific illustrator. He made pictures for Johan Ludvig Runeberg's The Tales of Ensign Stål and Esaias Tegnér's Frithiof's Saga, two of the most widely read poetic works in Sweden. His drawings brought the characters to life for generations of readers. He also drew genre scenes from the lives of children and peasants.
Malmström was a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and for a time its director. He was a respected teacher but sided with the Academy when the young Opponents demanded reforms in the 1880s. He died in 1901. His pictures have become an established part of Sweden's visual heritage, especially through books and school teaching.