243. CARL WILHELMSON. Light evening, oil on canvas, 43.5 x 60 cm.

CARL WILHELMSON 1866-1928 Bright evening Signed C. Wilhelmson. Made in 1914. Oil on canvas, 43.5 x 60 cm. Signature on the back 750. Weimaraner color.

According to the label on the back: "The people on the table are Carl Wilhelmson's sister Anna and one of his daughters, Inger.Anna Justina Andersdotter Wilhelmson was born in 1869 and died in 1952. The girl represents twelve-year-old Inger Nordenfelt, born in 1902.

No one has portrayed his hometown in the Fiskebäckskil on the Swedish west coast like Carl Wilhelmson. In his expressive paintings, he became the light painter from Bohuslän who gave life to everyday life and its simple beauty. Throughout Wilhelmson's life, the love of his hometown would be his main source of inspiration, as Axel L. Romdahl testifies to this in his monograph on the artist: "It would be the fixed point in his existence throughout his life, the one from which he started and to which he always came back and where he really spiritually had his being, wherever the paths of life took him.” In the auction's painting, Wilhelmson takes us to the beach slope down towards Bökevik, where we meet a woman with a baby girl looking out over the bay. According to information, the people represent Wilhelmson's sister Anna and his young daughter Inger. The motif of the painting can be found in the monumental composition "Midsummer Evening" completed in 1915 (180x380 cm), which depicts the evening's festivities at the outdoor dance floor and which is one of Wilhelmson's most appreciated and worked paintings. In bright and light summer colors, Wilhelmson shows how the old and new Fiskebäckskil meet, Romdahl tells that: "The new Fiskebäckskil is not only a skipper's and fishing village but also a seaside resort where the resident young girls come along and acquire the urban elegance that they seen in the wives, daughters and maids of the bathing families. When the dance takes place on the outdoor dance floor at Bökevik on Saturday and Sunday evenings, the elements mix with each other, and it is not easy to tell the difference".

In the current painting, Wilhelmson has reduced the motif to a peaceful, meditative landscape, in contrast to "Midsummer Eve" where a throng of party-hungry people have gathered around the outdoor dance floor. It is evening mood and the landscape is mainly in soft grey-blue, pink and yellow colours. The foreground is dominated by a stronger green color. In the distance, you can see the outline of Lysekil's church silhouetted against the sky.

PROVENANCE Purchased at Bukowskis in 1966, pictured in cat. no. 377, pl. 28.