Painting

Madame Rickhoff, who is the reputed woman, is backed by cushions comfortably back in her chaise lounge and has just taken her gaze from the unveiled book that she holds in her one hand. Her little beaked dog has caught her attention and comes with a letter in her mouth. Looking closely, one sees that the artist, Anders Zorn, has written his signature precisely on the letter the dog carries in his mouth. The painting in a semi-critical style performed Zorn during his French period in the 1890s when he lived in Paris and was an internationally recognised and sought-after portrait. Zorn at this time abandoned the watercolour painting in favour of oil painting and was inspired by the art in question, Impressionism, but never embraced it in its entirety. Zorn who was a great endowment, a true virtuoso, took advantage of the free brushwriting of Impressionism to create vital depictions that, like the painting of Madame Rickhoff, give the impression of being a quick snapshot. Carlgren, Maria, von Zeipel, Agneta: John Johnson’s donation. From Bohusländer Konst. YEARBOOK 1996. The art at Bohusläns museum. Bohusläns homestead association and Bohusläns museum. Uddevalla 1996. According to information in the book “Zorn,” Gerda Boëthius, 1949, the painting of the couple Rikoff was commissioned to the husband’s sister Mme Sadi Rikoff, Frankfurt. “The banker Martin Rikoff commissioned his own portrait and a new one of his beautiful husband Mme Clara. They would be gifts for Rikoff’s sister Mme Sadi Rikoff in Frankfuth and have a more intimate character. Artistically interested as they were, they didn’t mind Zorn experimenting with a lighting study and Mme Rikoff promised to sit model once more if it didn’t succeed. Zorn called the blackboard” Etude étude étude Mme Rikoff sits back, dressed in cut and white. The room is illuminated, so that the model is relatively evenly illuminated, and a lamp on the left throws a warm light on her right cheek. As usual, it is a game between cold and warm colors and the room behind is more in obscure and, like the area under the table, gives him the opportunity to study the illuminated obscure. The favorite dog, a greyblow-shifting griffon reports in his usual way to his mother, this time a paper on which Zorn jokingly affixed the signature: Zorn - 1890. The greyblue coat of the dog and the white paper scars effective moments in the colour composition. At the same time, with its heavy movement, it obliquely upsets one arm X-composition actively in the drawing board. The brush drive is refined, has some of the strident manér he used these years, but at the same time provides larger flat surfaces, such as on the right arm. ....... Rikoffs enjoyed the portrait and had no desire to get a more conventional portrait and Zorn immediately began painting the banker Martin Rikoff, even now with a much new arrangement. He sits at the desk in his workroom, half in profile. There is an afternoon mood in the room and a bonfire is burning in the open fireplace. The light highlights the model... " The Zorn Museum, Mora, writes in connection with the exhibition “Zorn and France” in 2017 about Zorn’s period in Paris: Zorn and France are the theme of the Zornmuseet Summer Exhibition 2017. For the first time, an entire exhibition is dedicated to the eight years that Anders Zorn and his wife Emma had their permanent address on the Boulevard de Clichy in Paris, just next to the renowned dance venue Molin Rouge. It was a time when Zorn’s international career took rocket momentum. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, the young Swede won the gold medal and was preached with the foremost of French orders, the Legion of Honour, and soon he was a respected name in the art life of the monstrous city. Zorn was here, like he is everywhere, like the fish in the water., wrote Carl Larsson. Famous artists, French cultural elite, stone-rich bankers and prima ballerinas pass revue in an exhibition that moves from Paris’s most exclusive environments to theatre lodges and artist ideas. With virtuoso technology, Zorn portrayed in paintings and etchings some of the most colorful personalities of that time, both Frenchmen and Frenchwomen and foreigners on temporary visits to the city. The works of this time belong to the best artist created. A new book, Zorn and France, authored by Vibeke Röstorp, is published on the occasion of the exhibition. The exhibition in Mora precedes the great Zorn setting shown this autumn at Petit Palais in Paris, Anders Zorn. Le Peintre de la Suède fin-de-siècle.