Gustaf Fjaestad
For condition report contact specialist
Morning of Dawn
Signed G A Fjaestad and dated Vermland 1904. Canvas 120 x 161 cm.
Provenance
Former bank director Einar Aspenberg (1887-1972), Kristinehamn collection. Personal friend of Gustaf and Maja Fjaestad.
Exhibitions
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915.
More information
It was his winter paintings that brought Gustaf Fjaestad fame, but at the same time, it's evident that he was a very versatile artist. The first curator of the Rackstadsmuseet, Per Inge Fridlund, goes so far as to call him versatile, "almost like a Renaissance painter." We see evidence of this in the current painting at the auction. During the summer, Fjaestad used a rowboat he had built himself to explore various aspects of the Värmland landscape on Rackensjön. Fjaestad's wife, Maja, wrote to her mother about it:
"It was a celebration, I must say, when Gustaf got the boat ready; then he went out for a test sail, and we walked around the point, following it with our eyes; it looked great on the lake. The next day, he sailed over to Ahlgrenssons and brought them here, and in the afternoon, we all rowed out to a little island called 'Kampöla' and had punch and indulged in lingonberries left over from last year. It's a splendid oak boat and can hold a great many."
Artist
Gustav Fjaestad was a pupil of Bruno Liljefors and Carl Larsson. He became renound for his depictions of Swedish winter landscapes, often with glistening icecrystals and bubbling water by ice's edge, sometimes lit up by the setting sun, sometimes in scales of grey, white and purple. He also designed templates for woven wallpapers, furniture, and wrought iron. He is represented in major Swedish museums as well as in Vienna and Chicago.
Read more