Carl Wilhelmson

Verso a study for 'Dans'.

On New Year's Day 1890, Carl Wilhelmson traveled to Paris, where he stayed until 1896. Despite his extensive stay, Paris would never become Wilhelmson's paradise. He longed for home in Fiskebäckskil with its inhabitants, sea and cliffs. In the summers, with the money he had saved up, he usually went home to Sweden and the west coast. There Wilhelmson could work undisturbed without having to worry about his daily bread. But it was not only the peace and quiet that was important; in the small fishing community he also found a wealth of models, not least from his own family, and lots of motifs and inspiration.

Like Karl Nordström, another of our Paris Swedes, Wilhelmson was not a city dweller; the only summer he remained in France, in 1893, he traveled to Brittany. Not only because this picturesque coastal landscape contained so many grateful motifs for a young painter, but also because it was in a way a substitute for the barren but beloved Swedish west coast.

The time in Paris gave Wilhelmson many influences and impressions, but without really contributing to the style that would become his hallmark, the depiction of folk life. Above all, Wilhelmson painted life and people in the small fishing community of Fiskebäckskil. The current catalog number is an exciting example of how Wilhelmson's style of painting eventually changed to a more pointillist brushwork.