"Afton" ("Evening")
Signed C F HiLL. Executed in Paris 1877/1878. Oil on canvas 82 x 100.5 cm.
The collections of Baroness Henriette Coyet, Torup Castle, Scania, Sweden (acquired from the Hill family, possibly through HRH Prince Eugen of Sweden, Duke of Närke); Margaretha Nyman (née von Leithner, Baroness Coyet's granddaughter), Lund, Sweden; Stockholms Auktionsverk, "Stora Kvalitén", 26 November 2009, lot 2098; private collection.
Malmö Museum, Sweden, "Carl Fredrik Hill. Retrospektiv utställning", 1933, no. 122; Galleri Färg och Form, Stockholm, "Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911)", February 1943, no. 89; Föreningen Malmö Konsthall, Malmö rådhus (Malmö City Hall), Sweden, "Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911)", March 1943, no. 79; Liljevalchs Konsthall (Liljevalch Art Gallery), Stockholm, Sveriges Allmänna Konstförening, "Friluftsmåleriets genombrott i svensk konst 1860-1885", 1944, no. 244; Nationalmuseum (National Gallery of Art), Stockholm, "Carl Fredrik Hill 1849-1911", September - October 1949, no. 164 (under the title "Afton [Det lutande trädet]"); Skånska Konstmuseum, Universitetet, Lund (University of Lund), Sweden, "För att lära känna Hill", 19 April - 3 May 1953, no. 23 (under the title "Afton [Det lutande trädet]"); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden, "Carl Fredrik Hill", 10 April - 7 June 1976, no. 55; Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, "Carl Fredrik Hill", 17 September 2011 - 29 January 2012; Nivaagaards Malerisamling, Nivå, Denmark, "Carl Fredrik Hill. Sveriges store landskabsmaler", 4 October 2015 – 31 January 2016.
Adolf Anderberg, "Carl Fredrik Hill. Hans liv och hans verk. Del I", 1926, illustrated p. 154; Viggo Loos, "Friluftsmåleriets genombrott i svensk konst 1860-1885", 1945, mentioned p. 231 and listed in the catalogue under "Kap. IX Carl Fredrik Hill", p. 341; Erik Blomberg, "Carl Fredrik Hill. Hans friska och sjuka konst", 1949, mentioned p. 67, listed in the catalogue p. 100 and illustrated full page in the plate section; Adolf Anderberg, "Carl Hill. Hans liv och hans konst", 1951, listed in the catalogue under "Dröm och vision: Slutet av år 1877 och de första månaderna 1878", p. 310, mentioned p. 255, illustrated full page Färgpl. X. (opposite p. 256) and in interior photo from the exhibition at Galleri Färg och Form, Stockholm, February 1943, p. 264; Sten Åke Nilsson, "Carl Fredrik Hill. Maximus Pictor", 2011, mentioned p. 45 and illustrated full page in colour, p. 175; "Carl Fredrik Hill. Sveriges store landskabsmaler", exhibition catalogue, Nivaagaards Malerisamling, Denmark, 2015, listed in the catalogue p. 210 (under the title "Aften"), mentioned p. 127 and illustrated full page in colour p. 128.
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Carl Fredrik Hill was a Swedish artist born in Lund. Hill is considered one of Sweden's formost landscape painters. His fate and artistry are perhaps the strangest but most interesting in Swedish art history. Born in an academic home in Lund, despite his father's protests, he managed to begin studies at the Art Academy in Stockholm and then traveled to France, where he came in contact with Corot's landscape painting. He found his inspiration in Barbizon and later on the River Oise, in Luc-sur-Mer and Bois-le-Roi. He painted frantically with the hope of being accepted into the Salon de Paris. Already during his student years, he struggled with an incipient mental illness and at the age of 28 he was taken to the mental hospital in Passy. During the hospital stay he began his rich production of drawings and then continued with the production after his return to Lund, where he was cared for by his family for the rest of his life. In thousands drawings, a fantasy world of figures scenes appears. Today, Hill's river landscape and flowering fruit trees from the years in France, together with the visionary drawings from the period of illness in Lund, have received great recognition. His art depicts a loneliness and longing that is easy to get caught up in. He is mainly represented at the Malmö Museum and at the National Museum in Stockholm.
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