205. CARL WILHELMSON. Study to “Church People in a Boat”.

Oil on canvas, 110 x 41 cm. Signed C. Wilhelmson. Executed circa 1909.

Preliminary study for Carl Wilhelmson's portal work “Church people in boat” as the title is in the Nationalmuseum catalogue. ID NM 1796. The work was completed in 1909 and bought in 1914 for the Nationalmuseum.

PROVENANCE
Fahlnaes konsthandel, Gothenburg.
Private collection, Gothenburg.

LITERATURE
Marked 124 on verso, possibly a reference to the artist's own catalogue.
Axel Romdahl, “Carl Wilhelmson”, Stockholm 1938, compare p. 135.

Carl Wilhelmson started drawing and painting early on. In Gothenburg, he started as an apprentice with a lithograph company, while also attending teaching at what is today Valand Art School, where Carl Larsson taught. In 1888, thanks to a travel scholarship, he was given the opportunity to go to Leipzig, after which two years later he went on to Paris. Ambitiously, he studied, among other places, at the Académie Julian. During the summers he went to his home in Fiskebäckskil to visit his mother and sister, but also to portray the nature and folk life that existed there. In 1896 he moved to Gothenburg and the following year, 1897, became superintendent of Valand's school of painting. In 1901 he married Bertha Kerfstedt whom he had come to know in Paris and soon daughters Inger and Ana were born.

Wilhelmson is described as the light painter from Bohuslän who with his expressive paintings brings to life everyday life where people, fish, water, houses and boats come together in the harmony of nature. Throughout Wilhelmson's life, his love of the home would be his main source of inspiration, Axel L. Romdahl writes in his monograph on the artist:

“It would be through life the fixed point of his existence, the one from which he departed and to which he always returned, and where in fact he spiritually had his being, wherever the paths of life led him.”

In the work of the auction, study to “Church People in Boat”, a man in a rowing boat is seen setting out from the church plan in Fiskebäckskil to bring the church people over to the community after the Sunday service. The color scheme that is clear and strong shows the inspiration from Paris that he drew from artists such as Paul Gauguin.