Gillis Hafström

Gillis Hafström

Gillis Hafström: Behind the scenes. 1897

Axel Gillis Hafström (born January 3, 1841 in Gothenburg , † November 18, 1909 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish painter and draftsman.

Life

Gillis Hafström was the son of the quarantine secretary Otto Johan Hafström (1803-1891) and his wife Clara, née Söderberg (* 1816). He grew up with his brother Johan August (1844–1913) in Gothenburg, where he initially studied at the Chalmers Technical University (Chalmerska slöjdskola). From 1861 to 1866 he studied at the Stockholm Art Academy . In 1867/68 he worked as a drawing teacher at the Uppsala College. Here he met the botanist Elias Magnus Fries . From 1870 to 1875 he continued his education in Düsseldorf without being enrolled at the art academy there , by orienting himself on the works of Rudolf Jordan and Henry Ritter . Friendship developed with the Swedish maker Ferdinand Fagerlin , who was married to Ritter's daughter.

Hafström then traveled through Germany and Holland and stayed in Paris from 1877 to 1878, where he a. a. in the circle of Swedish artists, among them the painters Axel Borg (1847–1916), August Hagborg (1852–1921) and Per Ekström (1844–1935) as well as the sculptor Ingel Fallstedt (1848–1899), frequented and restored paintings learned. Back in Stockholm, he opened 1878 with August Malmström a painting school and also taught from 1880 to 1883 the Royal Prince Eugene of Sweden primarily in watercolor painting . In 1879 Hafström became a member of the Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna , from 1883 to 1887 he was secretary of the Stockholm Art Association, until 1887 also its curator and in 1896 its director.

Hafström composed popular figure scenes in the popular style of the Düsseldorf School of Painting , for example from the life of smugglers, fishermen and seamen. In 1876 he made his best-known painting Kontraband , which shows a gang of smugglers being interrogated at the customs office, and which was acquired by the National Museum in Stockholm. His work also includes portraits and landscapes, including motifs from Landsort , Oxelösund and others from the Swedish east coast as well as views of Stockholm. He copied works by older masters and also provided reportage illustrations, including for the weekly newspaper "Ny illustrerad tidning", for example on a mill fire in 1878. This and other motifs were also used to decorate collector's plates.

Hafström participated in numerous exhibitions, such as the Free Art Exhibition in Stockholm in 1868, 1870, 1873, 1875, 1877 and 1885, the exhibitions of the Kunstverein in 1891, 1893 and 1901, the artist retrospective exhibition in 1898 and the exhibition in Gothenburg in 1891. Posthumous he was represented in the exhibition "Frankrike genom konstnärsögon" ("France seen through the eyes of artists") in Stockholm in 1941.

Portrait

• Anonymous drawing; Illustration: Svenskt Konstnärs Lexikon. Volume 2, 1953, p. 351; Svenskt Biografiskt Index Vol. 17, 1969, p. 714.

Works (selection)

• Archipelago idyll in Blidö ¸ in the foreground woman washing clothes (Skärgårdsidyll, Blidö, i förgrunden tvättande kvinna), 1862
• Kvinde vasker toj ved strandbreden , 1862
• Paddle steamer at Fredriksten - Svinesund fortress (Hjulångaren Halden vid Fredrikstens fästning - Svinesund), 1864
• Church visit (Kyrkobesoket), 1864
• Children building snowmen (Lekande barn i snö), 1866
• Girl in the Birch Forest (Flicka går genom björkdunge), 1868
• Children with sledges (Barn som åker kälke), 1868: Stockholm, National Museum
• Forest landscape with water mill and boy with brushwood - Mondscheinl (Skogslandskap med waderkvarn including gosse med risknippe - måndsken), 1869
• Forest landscape with waterfall and wooden raft - thunderstorm mood (Skogslandskap med fors och timmerflottare - oväderstamning), 1870
• House and garden - summer motif (Sommarmotiv med hus och trädgård), 1870
• Courtyard interior with figures (Gårdsinteriör med figurer), 1870: Stockholm, National Museum
• En passant , young officer chats with an attractive girl, 1870: Stockholm, National Museum
• Clown and Cupid , 1872
• Girl tying flowers and boy carving (Blomsterbindande flicka och täljande pojke), 1874
• Girl with a Bird in the Forest (Flicka med fågel), Düsseldorf 1874
• Smugglers' gang at the customs office (contraband), Düsseldorf 1876: Stockholm, National Museum; Illustration: Lexicon of the Düsseldorfer Malerschule, Vol. 2
• In the Forest of Fontainebleau (Fontainebleauskogen), Paris 1877
• The Encounter (Mötet), 1880: Stockholm, National Museum
• Fisher girl and young man playing harmonica (Friarlåt - Fiskarflicka och dragspelande pojke), 1880
• The emergency shot (Nödskottet); Motif from the pilot station in Landsort, 1883
• Motif by Djurgården (2 pictures), 1885
• Cliffs on the coast; Summer picture from Bohuslän (Klippigt kustlandskap med figurer - Sommarbild från Bohuslän), 1888
• Lad in the cliffs at Landsort (Landsorts Fyr), 1891
• In the studio (I ateljén), 1894
• Behind the scenes (I kulisserna), 1897
• Odengatan in Stockholm with the observatory on the hill (Odengatan i Stockholm med Observatoriet på Höjden), 1898
• The shipowner (Skeppsklareraren): Stockholm, National Museum
• At the ship broker (Hos skeppsfurneraren): Stockholm, National Museum

literature

• Johannes Jaeger (Ed.): Illustrerad catalog öfver fotografier efter constverk. J. Jaegers Ljustryckeri, Stockholm 1882.
• Georg Nordensvan : Swedish Art of the 19th Century . Leipzig 1904.
• John Roosval: Svensk konstgalleri. E. Lundquist, Stockholm 1912.
• Axel L. Romdahl , Johnny Roosval : Svensk Konsthistoria. Stockholm 1913.
• KA: Hafstöm, Axel Gillis . In: Ulrich Thieme , Fred. C. Willis (Ed.): General lexicon of visual artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 15 : Gresse – Hanselmann . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1922, p. 449-450 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).
• Georg Nordensvan: Sveriges allmänna konstförening 1832–1932 . Stockholm 1932.
• Emanuel Bénézit (Ed.): Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays , Vol. 4, 1951.
• Svenskt Konstnärs Lexicon. Volume 17, Malmo 1969.
• Ann Marie Elmqvist: Hafström, Axel Gillis. In: Hans Paffrath (Ed.): Lexicon of the Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1918. Volume 2: Haach – Murtfeldt. Published by the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in the Ehrenhof and by the Paffrath Gallery. Bruckmann, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7654-3010-2 , p. 33 (Fig .: contraband , 1876).
• Bettina Baumgärtel, Sabine Schroyen, Lydia Immerheiser, Sabine Teichgröb: Directory of foreign artists. Nationality, residence and studies in Düsseldorf. In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918. Volume 1, Michael Imhof Verlag, Peterberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 .
• Sixten Rönnow: Hafström, släkter. In: Svenskt Biografiskt Lexicon Volume 17: Geijer – Hall. Bonnier, Stockholm 1969, p. 713 ( sok.riksarkivet.se digitized).

Web links

Commons : Gillis Hafström  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ pharmacist; published De bildande konsternas utöfvare i Sverige 1600–1884 in 1884 .
2. ↑ Hafström, släkter. In: Svenskt Biografiskt Lexicon Volume 17: Geijer – Hall. Bonnier, Stockholm 1969, p. 713 ( sok.riksarkivet.se digitized).
3. ↑ three motifs, made by Gustavsberg AB, Gustavsberg, Sweden: Stockholm, National Museum