The artist Elsa Backlund-Celsing grew up in Russia, where she also received her artistic education. For most of her career, she was mainly active in Sweden, where she supported her family by successfully selling her artworks to art collectors at exhibitions and through galleries.

Her early paintings, from the beginning of the 20th century, brought Elsa Backlund-Celsing attention worldwide, in metropolises such as Saint Petersburg, Paris and San Francisco.
The successful industrial family around Alfred Nobel belonged early on to Elsa Backlund-Celsing's faithful collectors, and she came to often depict Nobel's private environments and family life in her art.

Västerås Art Museum, the Swedish museum that owns the significant collection of Elsa Backlund-Celsing's paintings, has carried out a retrospective exhibition in 2022. One of the museum's aims with the exhibition has been to give the audience the opportunity to meet a female art pioneer, internationally active during the 20th century.

The exhibition in Västerås drew attention above all to her early artwork, where the artist's motifs are self-selected and the driving force is tangible and clear. But the audience also encountered works of art that reflect and reproduce the aging artist's painstaking artistic production.

Elsa Backlund-Celsing is represented at the National Museum and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Västerås Art Museum, Sörmlands Museum in Nyköping, Värmlands Museum in Karlstad, Gripsholm Castle and the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, among others.

Moderna Museet's collections include three paintings by Elsa Backlund-Celsing.