MARTIN ARONSON-LILJEGRAL (1869-1954). Pierre Louis Alexandre - "Petterson", signeret og dateret M.Aronson 1900, olie på lærred.

ca 140x69 cm Kunstneren Aronson, der i 1902 tog efternavnet Liljegral, er født i Blekinge. Han var indskrevet på Akademiet mellem 1895-1901 og studerede også ved Tallbergs ætseskole.
Kunstneren arrangerede et kunstlotteri, hvor dette maleri var 6. præmie, en ikke usædvanlig måde at sælge på for tidens unge og fattige kunstnere. Aronson fokuserede ellers på religiøse motiver og kirkemaleri.

HISTORIE: Pierre Louis Alexandre er især kendt som model på Kunstakademiet i den sidste del af 1800-tallet. Blandt kunstnere, der afbildede ham, kan nævnes Anders Zorn, Karin Bergöö (Larsson), Johan Krouthén og Oscar Björck. Pierre Louis Alexandre (1844-1905) blev født i Fransk Guyana og kom til Stockholm i 1863, sandsynligvis som blindpassager på et amerikansk skib med svinekød i forsendelsen. Her ernærede han sig som stevedorearbejder, men er især blevet kendt som model på Kunstakademiet. I arkivkilderne optræder han med henholdsvis de svenskiserede efternavne Pettersson og Alexandersson. (Kilde: NM) Herkomst MATS WERNER KOLLEKTION – EN LEGENDE UOPDAGT

Some characters steal your attention right away. Like the man in the oil painting that hung in Mats Werner's childhood home in Stockholm. The portrait made a strong impression on everyone who came to visit. It was painted in Stockholm in 1879 by Karin Bergöö, later Larsson after her marriage to the famous artist Carl Larsson, and depicts a man of color sitting reclining with his hands clasped over one knee in a mild, warm light. The man radiates both a peaceful calm and a dormant strength. The gaze is fixed on the distance. The image has an enigmatic atmosphere.

Mats Werner eventually inherited the painting from his parents. When he later cleaned out a basement storage room he found a folder with drawings. One of them depicted the same man as in the oil painting. Werner got curious: Who was this man? What was his story? Were there more portraits? Mats Werner began a dedicated detective work that led him to a large number of authorities, consulates, archives, libraries and so on in different countries. The dead ends were many. But the man must have made an impression in 19th century Stockholm? Very true. Werner came across various stories about the man's background and theories about how he ended up here. Eventually, the picture began to clear. The enigmatic man was Pierre Louis Alexandre, born in 1844 in Cayenne, French Guiana. He probably arrived in Stockholm in the mid 1870´s with an American ship. He escaped from the ship and earned his living as a dock worker. As the harbor closed in the wintertime due to heavy ice, he was lucky enough to find a new income as a model at the Academy of Fine Arts between 1878 and 1903. He acknowledged his first model fees "Louis Pettersson”. Alexandre was married twice and lived at several addresses on Södermalm in Stockholm. He died of tuberculosis in April 1905.

There are 43 known portraits of Alexandre by artists such as Karin Bergöö, Anders Zorn, Oskar Björk and Emil Österman.

Mats Werner has over time become an expert on the man who looked out from an oil painting over the interior of his childhood home. This has resulted in a book - and a significant collection of portraits.

For Crafoord Stockholm, it is now a great pleasure to be able to offer 11 collected portraits depicting the legendary Pierre Louis Alexandre.