"Stjärnflickan" (Star girl)
Signed HL. Executed 1920. Panel 22 x 18 cm.
Barrister Gunnar Lewerth, Gothenburg.
Private collection.
From the collection of the artist Sven Ljungberg.
Riksförbundet för bildande konst, "Färg och Form - Naiv tradition", May 1963.
Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, "Hilding Linnqvist", 1957.
Ljungbergmuseet, Ljungby, "Sven Ljungberg. En konstnär och hans samling", 4 June - 28 August 2011.
Exhibition, "Hilding Linnqvist", Moderna museet 26 December 1986 - 22 February 1987, compare catalogue no. 24, "Porträtt av rysk dam", 1919, p. 24.
Det är under åren 1920-23 som många av Linnqvist mest betydande målningar kommer till, då han efter första världskriget fick möjlighet att resa utomlands. Han reser till Frankrike, där han bland annat målar sin berömda "Fågeltorget i Chinon", han reser till Italien, där många små målningar ser dagens ljus, vilket bekräftar hans tidigare uttalade devis: "Tavlor skall vara mycket små eller mycket stora!" Auktionens målning hör till det mindre formatet. Ur den mörka fonden bakom flickan lyser de små stjärnorna och återspeglas i flickans hårspänne med en underfundig mystik. Det råder en nästan litterär stämning i målningen.
Hilding Linnqvist is one of Sweden's most important naïve painters and became established and known early on for his colourful compositions. Linnqvist was a key figure in lyrical naivism in Sweden, with a style of painting that departed from the technical perfection he had been trained in. Several Swedish artists joined this innovative direction for the time. After studying at the Technical School and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, he was inspired by Edward Munch and Ernst Josephson's malaise art, which led him towards a freer and more uninhibited style of painting. During the 1920s, Linnqvist travelled abroad several times and his colours became brighter and his subjects more detailed.
He later painted coastal scenes and portraits, among other things. By the early 1940s, Hilding Linnqvist was an established and well-travelled artist, as well as a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1939-1941 and the subject of a major exhibition there in 1940.