Anders Zorn (1860 - 1920)

Anders Zorn

Anders Leonard Zorn was a Swedish painter, graphic artist, photographer and sculptor.

Zorn studied at the Stockholm Academy and then traveled extensively throughout Europe. After working in England, France and the United States, he returned to Mora in 1896. Zorn painted landscapes and portraits in watercolor and oil, and became known mainly for original salon painting and secular portraiture. Among his models were King Oscar II of Sweden, U.S. Presidents Grover Cleveland, William Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt. Through his work, Anders Zorn gained a reputation as one of the best genre painters and portraitists in Europe at the end of the 19th century, whose talent lay in his perceptive ability to convey the individual character of the model. At the age of 29, he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris.

Zorn also worked in etching, using the technique of drawing parallel lines across the plate; he was also a sculptor. Anders Zorn also amassed a significant art collection, which he bequeathed to the Swedish state. At the end of his life in 1920, he established the Swedish Bellman Prize for Literature.