Nils Kreuger

In 1887 Kreuger returned to Sweden from France and settled in Varberg, a coastal town situated 70 km south of Gothenburg, in the province of Halland. Between 1893–1895 he was joined there by his friends and collegues Richard Bergh and Karl Nordström. Together they founded what became known as Varbergsskolan (The School of Varberg) which greatly contributed to the creation of a pure national romantic style as a reaction to realistic landscape painting.

Kreuger frequently depicted alleys and gardens in Varberg and its surrounding villages. The present work depicts the so-called ”Granngårdarna" (the neighboring houses) in the village Apelvik, where Nils Kreuger and Karl Nordström both lived during the summers. The houses became nationally known through Karl Nordström’s famous picture ”Granngårdarna” in Nationalmuseum, which shows the houses from the opposite side.

Kreuger’s characteristic pointillistic technique which he begun to use in the autumn 1894, was probably the result of his exposure to van Gogh’s art on a visit to Den Frie Udstilling in Copenhagen in 1893.At Konstnärsförbundets (The artists Association) 8th exhibition in the spring 1894, Kreuger showed his famous pointillistic triptyk "Spring in Halland", Pauli his ”Vision” (both in Nationalmuseum) and Nordström his groundbreaking picture "Varbergs fäste” (Sparbanken). Kreuger also participated with drawings, which caught the art historian Karl Wåhlin’s attention. In a review of the exhibition in ”Ord och Bild”, 5th booklet 1894, he wrote: ”Nils Kreuger, som utställer några mycket känsliga smärre landskap i den veka, förfinade stil, som är honom egen, förträffliga tuschteckningar..” (Kreuger exhibits some very sensitively painted landscapes, in his characteristic refined style, and some excellent ink drawings..”).