Gösta Adrian-Nilsson
"Sjöman med dragspel" (Sailor with accordion)
Signed G.A-N. Executed circa 1922-23. Panel 55 x 46 cm.
Provenance
Earlier in the collection of Editor Carl Gruveman, Malmö, Sweden.
Falkkloos Konsthandel, Malmö, Sweden.
Private collection, Sweden (acquired from the above at the end of the 1950's).
Exhibitions
Riksförbundet för bildande konst, 1940,
Eugen Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, "GAN -Modernistpionjär och outsider", 19 February - 29 May 2011, no 63.
Literature
Nils Lindgren, "Gösta Adrian-Nilsson", 1949, illustrated half page, p. 109.
More information
On verso male profile executed by GAN.
Designer
Gösta Adrian-Nilsson is most notable as a visual artist, and he is a pioneer of Swedish modernism. He studied at the Tekniske Selskabs Skole in Copenhagen and later for Johan Rohde at Zahrtmann’s school in Copenhagen. As an avant-gardist, Nilsson was constantly searching for new influences. In Berlin, he was influenced by the circle around the radical magazine Der Sturm, through Kandinsky and och Franz Marc. In Paris through Fernand Legér and the artists in his circle. GAN was an eclectic in the positive sense of the word. He took the the artist styles of the 1900s and created new impressions. Symbolism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, constructivim and Theosophy were the colours occupying his internal pallet. He had a sharp eye for the masculine and his painting was often energized by the vitality of modern technology, vibrant eroticism, and echoes of tyrants. No other Swedish modern artist exhibits such a unique style.
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