Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections . Pt. 2

"Girl Knitting" by Anders Zorn

"It was in midsummer 1916 that I made Anders Zorn's acquaintance, when staying at Fuloberg hut as the guest of Dr. Helling, who attended him in his last illness. Fuloberg is one of those hilltops to which the cattle are driven to make the most of the short summer, and eat the grass which is not found lower down. The hut, a solid wooden building, originally belonged to Zorn but was given by him to Dr. Helling; it was built in the early seventeenth century.

Zorn's own house is in the valley, near Mora Church, and has a verandah with a beautiful view overlooking the river. Upon entering the drawing room I saw Zorn, a huge and rather corpulent man, sitting in an armchair with the tiniest little Yorkshire terrier sitting upon his shoulder. He shook hands and introduced me at once to 'Liten' (little fellow) the dog. 'He is an Englishman too, and he comes from Yorkshire and weighs three and a half pounds, which is less than his master weighs!' He spoke English perfectly, but with a strong foreign accent; his face was much lined, and had a tired, kind look. He told me about his visits to America and England.

Liljefors, the animal painter, then came in, but unfortunately he spoke no English. Mrs. Zorn then asked me to come to see the studio, and there I found wonderful old Dalecarlian tapestries, and solander cases full of Zorn's etchings. 'Some English people are very queer,' said Zorn. 'A man came to see me once and spoke about my etchings, but I could see that he didn't know what an etching was.' I brought him here (in a little side room full of porcelain trays and dishes) and told him that this was where I bit my plates. He looked very astonished, but after thinking a little asked me, 'But don't you find that it injures your teeth?'"

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections" in "The International Studio, 1897.)

Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections

"Self-Portrait," 1889 by Anders Zorn

"Mora, where Anders Zorn was born and died, is a little village by the shores of Lake Siljan, in the heart of Calecarlia, which itself lies in the very heart of Sweden. Hills surround the lake, and the country for miles in all directions is timber land, dotted with lakes, and intersected by rivers. In this country, in the year 1860, Zorn was born. His father was a German and employed in a brewery; his mother was of old Dalecarlian peasant stock. The boy first showed his talent for drawing at school at Enkoping, and when about fifteen years of age some of his father's friends subscribed 400 kronor (21 pounds) to enable him to attend the Academy school at Stockholm.

Even in the seventies twenty-one pounds would not go far for a growing boy, but it sufficed for the school fees, and he kept himself in food by selling pencil portraits at fifteen shillings each. In later days he used to tell how his mother reproached him when, after a couple of years' study, he returned to Mora penniless. 'If you had done as I wished and gone to learn to be a tailor, you would be getting four kronor a week now!' By 1882, however, he had saved enough money to come to England, where he stayed with a friend at Richmond, Surrey. But his money was soon exhausted, and on his friend's advice he went to one of the principal dealers in the Haymarket to try and sell an oil painting - a portrait of himself. He asked sixty pounds for this, and the dealer offered three pounds. Zorn angrily left the shop and vowed never to have anything to do with art dealers again. Penniless, he boldly took a studio in Brook Street at a rental of five pounds a week; got some elegant cards printed, and soon received a commission to paint various members of the Swedish Legation. In a few months all anxiety for the future was gone.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Anders Zorn: Some Personal Recollections" in "The International Studio, 1897.)