Zorn’s finest art seen through his paintings of ordinary people, particularly those of his home town Mora in Sweden.
Sweden
In 1911, he sailed to the US to paint its President, the third he had made a portrait of. But less than ten years later, Zorn was dead.
A portrait of Grover Cleveland, who had until recently President of the USA, an impudent nude, and girls frolicking in the sauna.
Nudes out in fresh air and sunshine, engravings in his distinctive lined style, and some social comment in the 1890s.
He wins himself the admiration of two rich American collectors, while returning to Sweden to paint in the country.
During a visit to St Ives in Cornwall, he starts painting in oils, then moves to Paris where commercial and artistic success await.
He resumes his travels, visiting Istanbul, Greece, Italy, then Algeria and Spain. Wonderful watercolours from there and at home in Sweden.
A brilliant watercolour painter as a student, he made a success of portraiture in Sweden and London. His early career to 1885.
One of the three great masters who took realist oil painting into the twentieth century: we commemorate the centenary of his death in August.
A succession of highly successful books, but around 1914 what he intended to be his masterpiece went terribly wrong.
