GUSTAVE ALBERT ANDERSSON. French winter landscape.

Oil on canvas, 123 x 175 cm, however, the canvas continues with signature weight on verso with 56 x175 cm. Signed Albert (verso).

PROVENANCE
Swedish Club, Paris.
Purchased directly by the artist October 4, 1892, original receipt issued by the artist included.

Born in Eskilstuna as the son of a blacksmith, Gustav Albert Andersson showed early artistic talent. With his father's permission, he began his art education in Stockholm. During the mid-1880s he came into contact with Herman Norrman, who, in protest of the Art Academy's teaching, chose to leave the academy to study for Carl Larsson at Valand School of Art in Gothenburg. Andersson followed along, but after only one year, plans were born to continue his art studies in Paris.

Instead, the trip went to America, where Andersson spent three years working, among other things, decorating horse cabs with imaginative weapons and ornaments. Only in 1890 did he come to Paris, where he would finally find his artistic residence.

The years in France were marked by illness and financial difficulties, but also by artistic maturity. After contracting tuberculosis, caused by living in damp basement rooms, Andersson made several return visits to Sweden. In 1896 he married Jeanne Ramboud, a wealthy Frenchwoman, and the couple settled in Gouvieux north of Paris, on the Oise River. There Andersson found motifs in the mist-shrouded dawn greenery and the shifts of the French landscape.

He also made his way to the shores of the Loing and Seine, to Normandy and Brittany, where he portrayed with tenderness and accuracy the morning haze, the evening sun and the play of colors of the sea. His painting is characterized by lyrical mood, rich color palette and an often restrained contrast action — a design language that came to be compared to Jean-Baptiste Corot's.

In Paris, his art was received with appreciation. Under the name Gustave Albert, he established himself among collectors and received recognition from the French Academy of Fine Arts. Although he remained relatively unknown in Sweden — and alien to contemporary national romanticism — he participated with three landscapes in the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897. He is currently represented in, among others, the Nationalmuseum, Gothenburg Museum of Art and Eskilstuna Art Museum, to which his widow donated an extensive collection after his death in Paris in 1905.

The club owns two works. A picture from the park in Vaucresson, purchased in 1892 and this depicted the winter landscape. It is folded about 50 cm at the bottom where the signature “Albert “is located. Tillan was found in the attic on Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin and was framed for the first time when moving into today's Club Address.

All lots in this themed auction sold without reserve.