Anders Zorn
The virtuoso of Dalarna.
Anders Zorn from Mora became an international star as a portrait painter and etcher. At home he painted Dalarna women, dancing and women bathing in the archipelago.
Anders Zorn was born in 1860 in Mora in Dalarna. His mother was a young woman from the area and his father a German brewer whom he hardly ever met. He grew up with his maternal grandparents. At just fifteen he was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, where he quickly became known for his watercolours.
In the early 1880s he left the Academy and travelled around Europe. He lived in London and Paris and travelled in Spain and other countries. In 1885 he married Emma Lamm, who came from a wealthy Jewish merchant family in Stockholm. She became his most important support and organised much of his career.
During his stay in the English artists’ colony of St Ives in the late 1880s he switched to oil painting. Out of Doors of 1888, with naked women on the rocks, is in the Gothenburg Museum of Art. He became one of the most sought-after portrait painters of his time and portrayed, among others, three American presidents. He was also one of the leading etchers of his day. In 2010 his watercolour Summer Amusement of 1886, with a young couple on a jetty, became the most expensive Swedish painting sold at auction up to that time.
In 1896 the couple moved home to Mora, where he built Zorngården. There he painted Dalarna women, folk life and women bathing. Midsummer Dance of 1897, in the Nationalmuseum, is among the best-known pictures in Swedish art. His technique was rapid and sure, with broad brushstrokes. It is often said that he used only four colours: white, yellow ochre, red and black. This is a simplification, but he liked to work with a very limited palette.
Zorn died in 1920 in Mora. Emma Zorn bequeathed the house and the collections to the Swedish state, and today the Zorn Museum and Zorngården are in Mora. He was also a great collector and was committed to preserving the culture of Dalarna. He is regarded as one of Sweden’s best-known artists. In later years he also made sculpture, including the statue of Gustav Vasa in Mora.