Anders Zorn

• Name — Anders Zorn • Birth Name — Anders Leonard Zorn • Born — 18 February 1860 • Birthplace — Utmeland, Mora, Sweden–Norway • Died — 22 August 1920 • Place of death — Stockholm, Sweden • Spouse — Emma Lamm • Field — Painting Sculpture Printmaker in etching • Training — Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, Stockholm • Illustration — Anders and Emma Zorn around 1885. • Illustration — Reveil (Awakening), the artist's wife • Illustration — Sommarnöje, 1886. Sweden's highest priced painting ever; sold for 26 million SEK on June 3, 2010. • Illustration — Emma Zorn, reading, 1887

Zorn was born and raised on his grandparents' farm in Yvraden, a hamlet near the village of Utmeland in the parish of Mora, Dalarna. He studied until the age of twelve in the school at Mora Strand before progressing in the autumn of 1872 to a secondary grammar school in Enköping. From 1875 to 1880, Zorn studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, where he amazed his teachers with his talent. Members of the Stockholm Society approached him with commissions. In early 1881, Zorn met Emma Lamm, whose background was quite different from his. Emma Lamm was from a wealthy Jewish merchant family. She was interested in art and culture and, after a long engagement, they were married in a civil ceremony in October 1885. Zorn traveled extensively, to London, Paris, the Balkans, Spain, Italy, and the United States. During the 1890s in Paris, he spent much time with the Finn Albert Edelfelt. He became an international success and one of the most highly regarded painters of his era. It was primarily his skill as a portrait painter that gained Zorn international acclaim, based principally upon his incisive ability to depict the individual character of his model.

In 1886, Anders Zorn and his wife, Emma, bought land close to Mora church and here they moved to a cottage from his maternal grandfather's farm. When Anders and Emma Zorn decided to return to Sweden after several years abroad, they began to enlarge the cottage. Zorngården, the Zorn combined smallholding, farmstead, and residence, was completed in 1910. Zorngården remains today much as it was at the time of Emma Zorn's death in 1942. It is an accurate example of an artist's home from the early years of the 20th century. With inspiration from English and Swedish architecture, it stands today as an accurate example of the architectural freedom that characterizes the years around 1900. • Illustration — Anders Zorn's atelier at his house, Zorngården in Mora The main part of Zorngården consists of Zorn's home and a museum with his art, but there are two other museums that also are part of the Zorn Collections. Gammelgården is in the southern part of Mora and consists of some 40 timber houses that Zorn bought to make sure that the old art of building such houses would not be forgotten. Gopsmor, Zorn's refuge when under stress, is in the municipality of Älvdalen and is only open for visitors in July. • Illustration — Self portrait, undated • Illustration — Self portrait, 1882 • Illustration — Self Portrait with Model, 1896 • Illustration — Self Portrait with Hat 1907 • Illustration — Self Portrait with Fur, 1915 • Illustration — Self-portrait in red, 1915 • Illustration — Self Portrait with Faun and Nymph (before 1920)

Zorn was known to use a basic color palette consisting of lead white (flake white), yellow ochre, vermilion, and ivory black. This limited color palette shows tremendous range in terms of color mixing. A large variety of tonal ranges is possible using this palette, a very important development for portrait painting. The color palette can also be used in still life and landscape painting under certain circumstances. The most striking aspect is that an olive greenish color is possible to obtain by mixing ivory black with yellow ochre, as ivory black is bluish in nature.

• Martha Dana (later Mrs. William Mercer) (1899) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston • George Peabody Gardner (1899) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston • A Portrait of the Daughters of Ramón Subercaseaux (1892), Private collection • Traveling companion (Mr. Charles Deering) (1904) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• Illustration — Castles in the Air, 1885 • Illustration — Our Daily Bread, 1886, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm • Illustration — Man and boy in Algiers, 1887 • Illustration — En premiär, 1888 • Illustration — Outdoors, 1888 • Illustration — The Tub (1888) • Illustration — Waltz, 1891 • Illustration — A Portrait of the Daughters of Ramón Subercaseaux, 1892 • Illustration — Omnibus I, 1892 • Illustration — An Irish Girl, 1894, National Gallery of Art • Illustration — Midsummer Dance, 1897 • Illustration — Dalecarlian Girl Knitting. Cabbage Margit, 1901 • Illustration — Hins Anders, fiddler or spelman, 1904 (Thiel Gallery) • Illustration — A Musical Family, 1905 • Illustration — Dance in Gopsmor, 1906 • Illustration — Girls from Dalarna Having a Bath, 1906 • Illustration — Ols Maria, 1918

Zorn's art made him wealthy and he was thus able to build up a considerable collection of art. The objects were not only bought in his native country but also during the many travels he made abroad. In their joint will, Anders and Emma Zorn donated their entire holdings to the Swedish State. Some of his most important works can be seen at the National Museum of Fine Arts (Swedish: Nationalmuseum) in Stockholm. Among them is Midsummer Dance (1897), a depiction of dancers in the evening light of a rural Midsummer's Eve celebration. Other museums holding major works by Zorn include the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Zorn Collections (Swedish: Zornsamlingarna) located in Mora and Garberg, Älvdalen, consist of four museums dedicated to the life and works of Anders Zorn. The main museum – Zornmuseet – was designed by Ragnar Östberg and opened in 1939. Shown there are extensive works of Zorn and his collected art by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, 'The Hovingham Master' (Poussin's follower), Bruno Liljefors, Albert Edelfelt, and Pehr Hilleström. The Bellman Prize (Bellmanpriset) is a literature prize for "an outstanding Swedish poet", every year awarded by the Swedish Academy. The prize was established by Anders Zorn and his wife Emma in 1920.

• Birnbaum, Britta (1985). Paintings at Nationalmuseum. (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum) • Lidbeck, Sven (2007). Anders Zorn Etchings – Catalogue Raisonné 2007. (Stockholm: Zorn Gallery) • "Anders Zorn in the Gilded Age", PBS biography (Colorado Public Television), one hour, 2013. • Oliver Tostmann, ed., Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America (Boston: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2013) • ArtGraphica biography