"Vårutsikt över Stockholm" (Spring view over Stockholm)
Signed HL and signed in pencil on verso. Canvas 62 x 101 cm.
Färg och Form, Stockholm.
Carl-Eric Björkegren's collection.
Private Swedish collection.
Svenska konstutställningen i Helsingfors, 1945.
Som skildrare av Stockholm spänner Hilding Linnqvist över ett rikt register. Stockholmsbildernas rikedom och bredd står i direkt sammanhang med hans val av bostäder med milsvidd utsikt över den under olika årstider föränderliga staden. På 1920-talet låg hans kombinerade ateljé och bostad vid Kornhamnstorg, där kunde han följa vad som skedde på kajerna vid Gamla Stan och på Södermälarstrand. På 1940-talet blev ateljén på Bastugatan en oslagbar utkiksplats för en konstnär som ville återge den imponerande vyn bort mot Kungsholmen och Norr Mälarstrand. Senare skapar bostaden i Gröndal nya utmaningar och vyer. Under dygnets alla timmar avslöjade Stockholm allt vad Mälardrottningen hade att bjuda på av rymd och atmosfär, färg och liv, för Hilding Linnqvist.
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.