Painting

Ragnar Ljungman was born in Gothenburg on 1 November 1883. Father Knut Elof Ljungman, a civil engineer and professor at the Technical University, was born in Valla on Tjörn in 1851. The mother was called Clara Wilhelmina Undén and was born in Borgvik, Modern mland in 1846. The family lived for a time in Värmland, seven years later in San Francisco, USA. They moved back to Sweden in 1896 and settled in Hedvig Eleonora parish, Stockholm. In the summer, Ragnar Ljungman, along with his mother and sister, was staying with the grandma Britta-Christina Ljungman, (née Andersson 1819 and daughter of the Crown nextman Andreas Andersson, Tjörn). The Great Annunciation was in Lilldal, the parish of Stenkyrn. The grandfather was Karl Johan Gottfrid Ljungman (1819 - 1853), a tenant at Sundsby’s seal and the son of a cofferdi captain Carl Ljungman (1790 - 1838), the owner of Anfasteröds farm in Ljungs parish and a tenant of Sundsby’s seal. Ragnar Ljungman had artistic influence on his mother’s side. In 1901 he began artistic studies at Althin’s compulsory school. Rich inspiration he had received in Bohusländer where he had spent happy childhood sweaters along with the genera on Tjörn. At 19, Ragnar Ljungman returned in the summer of 1902 to paint. With his thirties, he left Mollösund at Orust and Halsbäck on Tjörn for further processing in Stockholm during the winter half. In August of the same year, 1902, his actual effort in art education started. He entered the Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm where he started in the antique class. Ragnar Ljungman had a hard time finding himself reprimanded here and already next spring he suspended the studies to make the conscription. From there, however, he was soon engaged because of a heart progeny. In the autumn of 1903 he was attracted to Värmland by the best friend Sigge Bergström at the invitation of Bergström’s parents. Ragnar Ljungman ended up in the middle of a family society in which Sigge’s father was a supervisor and a central figure. Here he also met the friend’s cousin, the 20-year-old Ragnhild Bergström. The couple later became engaged. Ragnar Ljungman drew inspiration from the heaty and Norwegian nature lyric, literature and tone poetry with motifs from Selma Lagerlöf, Gustaf Fröding, Knut Hamsun and Henrik Ibsen’s poetry and Edward Grieg’s music, especially the Peer Gynt suite. In the summer of 1904 he painted again in the residential coastal community Mollösund for a few summer weeks. He worked intensively and completed five major oil paintings and thirties sketches. In September 1904 Ragnar Ljungman went to Paris along with Sigge Bergström. His finances were scarce. He studied at Académie Colarossi and at F. Desmoulin’s etcher school and worked with sketches he brought from Sweden. He developed a personal oil paint technique, a pointillism, with uniformly dotted, paste coated paint clicks that covered the entire canvas. In Paris, he received the painting “Summer Morning” with motifs from Mollösund adopted to the Spring Salon in 1905. In April 1905 he returned to Sweden, but with reduced health. He continued to paint and reunited with his fidelity Ragnhild in the city of Vämland, where he worked during the summer and autumn. In the autumn of 1905 and spring of 1906, Ragnar Ljungman lived with his parents in Stockholm. He worked on model studies at the Artists' Association School, where he started in the new year 1906. The artist relieved the teacher Karl Nordström encouraged him. The young Ragnar resumes a topic he had previously devoted himself to, namely drawing for joking magazines. He sold a number of pictures that were reproduced in Sunday-Nisse. This gave him some income. In the summer of 1906 he planned to paint on the west coast in the company of Ragnhild. He unfortunately fell into tuberculosis and came to a sanatorium in the Mörsil region of May. On 9 July 1907 he died of the disease in Stockholm at the age of 24. In 1918 the friends organized an exhibition with Ragnar Ljungman’s works. Some works were also shown at the jubilee exhibition West Swedish Art in Gothenburg in 1923. Ragnar Ljungman is represented at Nationalmuseum, the Gothenburg Museum of Art and the Lund University Museum of Art. The Museum of Bohusläns manages a donation to the municipality of Uddevalla by Ragnhild Bergström/Albert and Maria Bergström from 1952/1984. The collection consists of works listed as RL1 - RL462 [RL000001 - RL000462 in digitization] and includes oil paintings and drawings in watercolour, coal, tusch, pencil and graphics. Exhibition text for “Autumn Shimmering Art” September - November 2003 at Bohusläns Museum, which included RL000087 and RL000099: Ragnar Ljungman (1883 - 1907) died young. It was the tuberculosis that took his life. His faithful Ragnhild Bergström cared for all the works that he had been able to perform during his upbringing in San Francisco in the United States, during the summers at Orust and Tjörn, as well as in Värmland with the best friend Sigge Bergström, and at the art studies in Stockholm. One sees in the pictures an applicant painter. Impressions from artists such as Carl Wilhelmson, the father of French Neoimpressionism Georges Seurat, the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela and others. can be traced in the pictures. Bohusläns museum manages a collection of 462 oil paintings, watercolours and drawings and graphics. Literature: Bergström, Ingmar: Ragnar Ljungman a forgotten painter with roots on Tjörn. From the Bohuslänska FornUr, the Vikarvets Yearbook number 30, 1978-1979, p. 77-89. Bergström, Ingmar: Ragnar Ljungman a forgotten artist who painted in both Bohusländer and ström mland. This writing is a slightly processed version of the article in Vikarvets, 1978-1979. Published by Berith Bergström’s Minne. Lysekil 2014. Bergström, Sigge: Among laurel crowned bohemians. Wahlström & Widstrand, Stockholm 1939. Cederblom, Gerda: Swedish folk life pictures. Nordic Museum, Stockholm 1923, picture 50. Holmström, Richard, Liljeroth, Erik, Svensson, S. Artur: County of Bohusi. Everyday Landscape Books. Malmö 1956. Håkanson, Mimi, Ragnar Ljungman (1883-1907). From the Art at Bohusläns Museum, Bohuslän Konst Årsbok 1996, pp.58 - 63. Now on site in Bohusläns museum, Ragnar Ljungman Tjörn’s artistic “star shot.” Article in Bohusläningen 1984-10-10. Ragnar Ljungman, born November 1. 1883, died July 9, 1907. Memorial Exhibition. Stockholm, 1918. The Swedish people of all time. The cultural history of our country in depictions and pictures. Red: Ewert Wrangel with the editorial participation of Arvid Gierow, Bror Olsson m. fl. The New Century. Allhem, Malmö 1940, p. 247. Swedish Artist Mixicone, Part III. The publishing house of Allhem 1957. Strömbom, Sixten: The Artist Ragnar Ljungman 1883-1907. Memory drawing. Uddevalla 1970. Image screen: Press release from the museum in the summer of 2014 when almost 90 works of art by Ragnar Ljungman were lent to them; “Ragnar Ljungman’s powerful painting is on Långban Moderna.” Copy of the message sorted under RL000001.