Gösta Adrian-Nilsson

Managing director of Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm, Harry Runnqvist.
Managing director of Galerie Bonnier, Geneva and Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm, Jan Runnqvist, Ph. D. (by descent from the above mentioned, his father).
Subsequently by descent.

Nils Lindgren, "Gösta Adrian-Nilsson", 1949, compare "Rugby" (watercolour, signed GAN and dated -36, earlier in the collections of Composer Gösta Nystroem, Varberg, Sweden), illustrated full page in colour opposite page 144.

Gösta Adrian-Nilsson is most notable as a visual artist, and he is a pioneer of Swedish modernism. He studied at the Tekniske Selskabs Skole in Copenhagen and later for Johan Rohde at Zahrtmann’s school in Copenhagen. As an avant-gardist, Nilsson was constantly searching for new influences. In Berlin, he was influenced by the circle around the radical magazine Der Sturm, through Kandinsky and och Franz Marc. In Paris through Fernand Legér and the artists in his circle. GAN was an eclectic in the positive sense of the word. He took the the artist styles of the 1900s and created new impressions. Symbolism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, constructivim and Theosophy were the colours occupying his internal pallet. He had a sharp eye for the masculine and his painting was often energized by the vitality of modern technology, vibrant eroticism, and echoes of tyrants. No other Swedish modern artist exhibits such a unique style.