AUGUST MALMSTRÖM. View from the Bohuslän Archipelago.

Watercolor on paper laid on cardboard
17 x 25.6cm, 38 x 46cm. Signed “A M-n/Bohuslän”.
Contemporary frame made by Ludvig Friberg Mirror & Frame Factory, Drottninggatan 84, Stockholm

LITERATURE
Jmf A. Hedvall, “Bohuslän in the Arts”, 1956, pp.117-119, 144-147
Jmf T. Björk, August Malmström, 1997, pp. 316-19

In the summer of 1864, shortly after his return to Sweden after his long stay abroad, Malmström travelled to Bohuslän with the intention of undertaking studies for “Bråvallaslaget.” That he brought a recluse between two Vikings to the western Swedish archipelago, was done to point to Bohuslän as the ancient home of the Vikings. A woodcut after the painting in “Ny Illustrerad Tidning” in 1877 bears the title “Holmgang i Viken”. “Viken” was the old name of Bohuslän, from which the term “Vikings” for its inhabitants was assumed to have been formed.

The Bohuslän landscape made a great impression on Malmström and during the 1870s and 80s he regularly returned there to perform watercolours of the characteristic landscape, first in Fjällbacka then in Mollösund. Malmström was a very skilled watercolour painter. Already in 1870 he exhibited a collection at the Academy of Arts. A. Hedvall, op. cit, has carefully described Malmström's watercolours from Bohuslän, most of which are part of the Nationalmuseum's collections. He writes:

“Malmström's Mollösund landscape is particularly striking through its denominational studies. With fondness, the artist has chosen seemingly bland subjects such as close-ups of rocky areas or rocky meadows and has been able to exclaim from them a coloristic symphony, which is neither more nor less than exquisite.”

Malmström regarded his landscape watercolors as independent works of art. Only exceptionally did they come to constitute studies to landscapes in his paintings. Malmström regularly exhibited his landscape watercolors. When the Art Society organized a watercolor exhibition in 1888, Malmström's “small simple, finely sensitive skizzes” (Björk, op cit.) At another exhibition in 1893, it was noted that Malmström participated with “small cover landscape motifs” (idem.). Also at the prestigious Stockholm Exhibition in 1897, Malmström showed watercolours which were described by the watercolour painter Hjalmar Sandberg as “delicately executed” (idem.). For his watercolours, Malmström also received the Egron Lundgren Medal of the Academy of Fine Arts.