Sophie Södergren

Just flowers and flower still lifes were one of Sophie Södergren's special motifs in her artistic career. Here, in an arrangement of early summer flowers we can see that she mastered the genre fully. Additionally, she often painted landscapes and genre scenes.
Sophie Södergren studied at the "Fruntimmers-Afdelningen" at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and under Severin Nilsson in Stockholm. She belonged to the first group of "academy girls" who received free education there from 1864. In 1874, after completing her studies, she traveled to Paris to continue her education. The journey was undertaken in the company of fellow artists Amanda Sidwall, Anna Nordlander, and Anna Nordgren. They studied at one of Académie Julian's two women's studios, where Jules Lefebre and Tony Robert-Fleury were their main teachers. Around the mid-1870s, about 18-20 women of various nationalities studied there, including the Finns Amélie Lundahl and Maria Wijk. The "girls" soon became part of a circle of artists, where Swedes Alfred Wahlberg, Hugo Salmson, Carl Skånberg, and Olof Hermelin were the most prominent. Robert-Fleury encouraged his female students to try to exhibit at the Salon. The Swedish girls had no great expectations, well aware of the difficulty their male Swedish colleagues faced in gaining attention in Paris. However, in 1877, Amanda Sidwall debuted at the Salon with the painting "Lecture intressante" (Interesting Reading), and the following year, Sophie Södergren participated in the World Exhibition in Paris with several landscape paintings from Dieppe in Normandy. The exhibition was seen by a total of 13 million visitors. Georg Pauli has recounted in his memoirs that Sophie Södergren worked for a period in 1876 at Severin Nilsson's studio in Paris, along with several female colleagues.
"In Severin Nilsson's studio, which we call the women's school, work is done on Filadelfia orders. In one corner sits Miss Södergren, ..."
Pauli refers here to the World Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, for which Olof Hermelin was the exhibition commissioner. The exhibition was the first of its kind and was held to celebrate the centenary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. Södergren had evidently been asked to contribute works.
It is not known when Södergren returned to Sweden. She was a member of the Svenska Konstnärernas Förening (Swedish Artists Association) and participated in their exhibitions in Stockholm in 1890 and 1900. She also participated for many years in a series of exhibitions in various locations in Sweden and in various contexts during her career. Södergren is represented at the Nationalmuseum and the Östergötland Museum.