"Trädet och flodkröken" (The tree and the river bend, landscape from Bois-le-Roi/Brolles, France)
Signed C.F HiLL. Executed in 1877. Oil on relined canvas 80.5 x 99.5 cm.
Mrs. Marie Louise Klason (née Hill, the artist's sister), Stockholm; by descent within the family.
Liljevalchs Konsthall (Liljevalchs Public Art Gallery), Stockholm, "Svenskt måleri under 100 år", April 1932; no. 188 (under the title "Flodlandskap") Malmö Konsthall, Sweden, "Carl Fredrik Hill. Exhibition of paintings and drawings", April 10 - June 7, 1976, no. 46 (listed with erroneous measurements in the catalogue); Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, "Carl Fredrik Hill", October 1, 1999 - January 16, 2000, no. 69 (listed with erroneous measurements in the catalogue).
Klas Fåhraeus, 'Svenskt måleri under 100 år', article in "Konstrevy", 1932, illustrated half page p. 92 (under the title "Flodlandskap"); Adolf Anderberg, "Carl Hill. Hans liv och hans konst", 1951, illustrated full page Pl. 89 (under the title "Trädet och flodkröken IV"); (Ed.) Karin Sidén, "Carl Fredrik Hill", exhibition catalogue no. 615, Nationalmuseum, Sweden, 1999, illustrated full page in colour, p. 60 (under the title "Trädet och flodkröken" with erroneous measurements) and listed in the catalogue, p. 215, no. 69.
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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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