534. TORA VEGA HOLMSTRÖM. "Rose" (Still life with rose, books and magnifying glass).

Oil on canvas 45 x 34.6 cm. Signed "TVH". Silver-plated original frame. A verso study for self-portrait.

PROVENANCE John Wilson, purchased directly from the artist on 23 March 1942 in connection with his exhibition at Malmö Museum; then inherited within the family until 2022 LITERATURE Malmö museum monthly, no. 43, March 1942, Exhibition by Tora Vega Holmström. Catalogue, no. 54 "Ros" EXHIBITIONS Malmö, Malmö museum, Tora Vega Holmström, 13-30 March 1930, no. 38 "Roses and books" Malmö, Malmö museum, Exhibition by Tora Vega Holmström, March 1942, no. 54 "Ros" COMPARATIVE LITERATURE B. Rausing, Rainer Maria Rilke and Tora Vega Holmström. 1989 B. Steorn, Strangers to each other? A study in Looking at the Works of Tora Vega Holmström, in Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, Vol. 81, 2012, pp. 150-165 K. Schiff, Soulmates, About Tora Vega Holmström and Adolf Hölzel, Uppsala University, Department of Arts, 2020 ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPT - Letter from Tora Vega Holmström to John Wilson dated Lund, Bredgatan 25, March 23, 1942, in the fold among a. the selling price for the painting, SEK 450.5, is settled - Letter card from Tora Vega Holmström to John Wilson dated Kåseberga, August 3, 1942 "Mr. John Wilson. I hereby thank you for the last installment of Ros and books, SEK 50, and at the same time for your kind words. I have had particular pleasure in this painting deal, because I was attached to the painting and wanted it to go to someone who cared about it. I painted it in Marseilles in 1928 after a long "bad" period, and I did it for three weeks in peace and quiet, on a friendly -, everything was fine! It is my father's magnifying glass that is on the books. They are now here in front of me. - Such peace of mind to work, there is hardly any nowadays. Sincerely, Tora Vega Holmström" Tora Vega Holmström (1880–1967) went her own way. In 1903, she studied with Adolf Hölzel at his art school in Dachau, and when her generation mates sought out Matisse in Paris, she studied with Hölzel again, now in Stuttgart. Holmström and Hölzel developed a very close relationship and exchanged letters with each other throughout their lives. During Hölzel's visit to Sweden in 1911, he visited Hvilan's folk high school in Åkarp, Sweden's first folk high school, founded in 1868, whose first director was Leonard Holmström, Tora Vega's father. Based on Hözel's color theory, Tora Vega Holmström developed a distinctive color spot painting that characterizes her early modernism. She eventually abandoned the mosaic technique for a paler, more dreamlike painting where the lines are emphasized, of which the current painting is a prominent example. The linework in the background of the painting that surrounds the rose may possibly be intended to represent a dreamy face, perhaps her own or her father's, whose magnified image is placed on one of the books in the foreground. The rose, a classic symbol of love, would then be a reference to the memory of her father who had passed away ten years earlier.

The painting is done in Marseille, a city Tora Vega Holmström first visited in 1924, and where she often came to stay. She had started painting still lifes the year before when she lived in Lund at Bredgatan 25. In a letter to Svea Larsson, dated Lund, March 23, 1927, she writes (B. Rausing, Tora Vega Holmström, 1981, p. 160): "Now I would very much like you to see my last things. They are not so much an expression of my desire / but a burning red amaryllis against gray on a lemon-yellow canvas and with an almost animal-like brown and cut shell, I believe in it, in some way..." After an intense exhibition year in Sweden, traveled Tora Vega Holmström to France where she settled in Marseille. During the spring of 1927, she had taken an active part in an exhibition of Ester Almqvist's work at the Scanian Art Museum at Lund University, which she hung together with Maj Bring (Rausing, op. cit., p. 164). The same spring she exhibited with the group "De tolv" in Lund. In the summer of 1927, she participated in the art exhibition in Tomelilla in connection with the large agricultural exhibition. Among the invited co-exhibitors are Kurt Jungstedt, Einar Jolin, Carl Kylberg, Axel Nilsson, Vera Nilsson and Carl Milles. During the autumn, she participated in an exhibition in Riga together with Prince Eugen and Carl Wilhelmson.

In the execution of the painting, Tora Vega Holmström has used both a brush and a palette knife. Tora Vega Holmström has noted on the back of several of her paintings that "Obs. The painting must not be varnished", among others. a. on a still life that was sold at Stockholms Auktionsverk spring 2020 ….. (see picture). Strindberg has also made similar admonitions on the back of several of his paintings, e.g. a. a painting at the Strindberg Museum. A painting that was not intended to be varnished changes radically if it is later varnished; the color and the substrate are saturated and the overall expression the artist sought to achieve is irretrievably lost because the process is not reversible. With this in mind, the painting in question has been cleaned by a conservator without applying a protective varnish.

John Wilson, the painting's first owner, was possibly the father of Elsa Wilson (1878-1944), who studied at the art school in Dachau from 1901. The aforementioned letter from Tora Vega Holmström to John Wilson as well as the Malmö Museum Monthly for March 1942 and a review of the exhibition in Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten on March 20, 1942, are included.

On September 10, 2022 - January 29, 2023, an exhibition by Tora Vega Holmström was shown at Thielska Galleriet in Stockholm, ""Mirroring is the first step towards art" – Tora Vega Holmström", the first solo exhibition of her art in Stockholm since 1945.