Helmer Osslund

Helmer Osslund is considered one of the great interpreters of the northern Swedish landscape. Starting with his move to Fränsta in Medelpad in 1898, he dedicated himself to depicting Norrland and its nature for the rest of his life. However, while his paintings were locally rooted in terms of subject matter, his style was highly international in its expression. Through numerous travels with stays in both America and Europe, Osslund possessed a perspective that extended far beyond both Lapporten and Höga kusten.

Osslund settled in Paris in 1894, and his encounter with the then relatively unknown artist Paul Gauguin left a profound impression on him. Nils Palmgren describes in his book about Osslund the impact of Gauguin's painting: "There was the refined and distinctly personal sound, strong coloration, complete surfaces, and yet a superb manipulation of masses into a decorative whole, and there was finally a strange empathy and a beauty cult interwoven with mysticism, all qualities that deeply appealed to Osslund."

Like Gauguin, Osslund is a transitional artist, as also noted by Palmgren. In his works, one can find both the end of a development line in European art and the beginning of something entirely different. Naturalism and impressionism, which aim to conquer full reality, wrestle in his painting with a burgeoning expressionism, where the focus is on abandoning reality for the personal, for the self.