Anders Zorn

Anders Zorn was a Swedish artist who worked at the turn of the 19th century, famed for his enormous talent in portraiture. He studied art from a young age, and traveled extensively in Europe and the United States, painting many of the important figures of his time—including three American presidents, King Oscar II of Sweden, and numerous socialites and political figures. Though he used watercolor as a young artist, he mastered and stuck to oil painting throughout the majority of his career. Zorn handled his brushes with a playful, almost sketch-like energy that created luminous, almost flickering light. He married this paint handling with a deeply accurate and academic rendering of figures, and an extremely controlled, limited color palette. The tension between his almost perfectionist forms and his loose, uncontrolled brushstrokes brought him patrons, and solidified his highly regarded legacy after his death. He became wealthy from commissions and built a large art collection that he donated to the Swedish state upon his death.