The Most Famous

PAINTERS from Sweden

This page contains a list of the greatest Swedish Painters. The pantheon dataset contains 2,023 Painters, 23 of which were born in Sweden. This makes Sweden the birth place of the 16th most number of Painters behind Austria, and Denmark.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Swedish Painters of all time. This list of famous Swedish Painters is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Swedish Painters.

1. Carl Larsson (1853 - 1919)

With an HPI of 69.38, Carl Larsson is the most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 55 different languages on wikipedia.

Carl Olof Larsson (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈkɑːɭ ˈlɑ̌ːʂɔn] ; 28 May 1853 – 22 January 1919) was a Swedish painter representative of the Arts and Crafts movement. His many paintings include oils, watercolors, and frescoes. He is principally known for his watercolors of idyllic family life. He considered his finest work to be Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice), a large painting now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts.

2. Hilma af Klint (1862 - 1944)

With an HPI of 67.55, Hilma af Klint is the 2nd most famous Swedish Painter. Her biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Hilma af Klint (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈhɪ̂lːma ˈɑːv ˈklɪnːt]; 26 October 1862 – 21 October 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings are considered among the first abstract works known in Western art history. A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian. She belonged to a group called "The Five", comprising a circle of women inspired by Theosophy, who shared a belief in the importance of trying to contact the so-called "High Masters"—often by way of séances. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.

3. Alexander Roslin (1718 - 1793)

With an HPI of 62.43, Alexander Roslin is the 3rd most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Alexander Roslin (spelled Alexandre in French, pronounced [alɛksɑ̃dʁ ʁɔslɛ̃]; 15 July 1718 – 5 July 1793) was a Swedish painter who worked in Scania, Bayreuth, Paris, Italy, Warsaw and St. Petersburg, primarily for members of aristocratic families. He combined insightful psychological portrayal with a skillful representation of fabrics and jewels. His style combined Classicist tendencies with the lustrous, shimmering colours of Rococo, a jocular, elegant and ornate style. He lived in France from 1752 until 1793, a period that spanned most of his career. The painting by Roslin depicting Jeanne Sophie de Vignerot du Plessis, Countess of Egmont Pignatelli, was bought by the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2006 for US$3 million. Roslin also has pieces displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

4. John Bauer (1882 - 1918)

With an HPI of 60.88, John Bauer is the 4th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

John Albert Bauer (4 June 1882 – 20 November 1918) was a Swedish painter and illustrator. His work is concerned with landscape and mythology, but he also composed portraits. He is best known for his illustrations of early editions of Bland tomtar och troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls), an anthology of Swedish folklore and fairy tales. Bauer was born and raised in Jönköping. At 16 he moved to Stockholm to study at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. While there he received his first commissions to illustrate stories in books and magazines, and met the artist Ester Ellqvist, whom he married in 1906. He traveled throughout Lappland, Germany and Italy early in his career, and these cultures deeply informed his work. He painted and illustrated in a romantic nationalistic style, in part influenced by the Italian Renaissance and Sami cultures. Most of his works are watercolors or prints in monochrome or muted colours; he also produced oil paintings and frescos. His illustrations and paintings broadened the understanding and appreciation of Swedish folklore, fairy tales and landscape. When Bauer was 36, he drowned, together with Ester and their son Bengt, in a shipwreck on Vättern, a lake in southern Sweden.

5. Bruno Liljefors (1860 - 1939)

With an HPI of 56.91, Bruno Liljefors is the 5th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Bruno Andreas Liljefors (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈbrʉ̌ːnʊ ˈlɪ̂lːjɛˌfɔʂ] ; 14 May 1860 – 18 December 1939) was a Swedish artist. He is perhaps best known for his nature and animal motifs, especially with dramatic situations. He was the most important and probably most influential Swedish wildlife painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He also drew some sequential picture stories, making him one of the early Swedish comic creators.

6. Martin van Meytens (1695 - 1770)

With an HPI of 55.32, Martin van Meytens is the 6th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Martin van Meytens (24 June 1695 – 23 March 1770) was a Swedish-Austrian painter who painted members of the Royal Court of Austria such as Marie Antoinette, Maria Theresa of Austria, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor's family and members of the local aristocracy. His painting style inspired many other painters to paint in a similar format.

7. Eugène Jansson (1862 - 1915)

With an HPI of 52.65, Eugène Jansson is the 7th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Eugène Fredrik Jansson (18 March 1862, Stockholm – 15 June 1915, Nacka) was a Swedish painter known for his night-time land- and cityscapes dominated by shades of blue. Towards the end of his life, from about 1904, he mainly painted male nudes. The earlier of these phases has caused him to sometimes be referred to as blåmålaren, "the blue-painter".

8. Odd Nerdrum (b. 1944)

With an HPI of 52.59, Odd Nerdrum is the 8th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Odd Nerdrum (born 8 April 1944) is a Norwegian figurative painter who was born in Sweden; his work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year. They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects (like bricks), portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The figures in Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place. Nerdrum was born in Sweden. His Norwegian parents were resistance fighters who had fled German-occupied Norway to Helsingborg, Sweden during World War II where Nerdrum, subsequently, was born. At the end of the war Nerdrum returned to Norway with his parents. By 1950 Nerdrum's parents had divorced leaving the mother to raise Odd and his younger brother. In 1993, Nerdrum discovered that his father was not his biological father; his mother had had a relationship with the architect David Sandved. Nerdrum was born from this liaison. Nerdrum was educated in a Rudolf Steiner school and later at the Art Academy of Oslo. Disillusioned with the art form taught at the academy and with modern art in general Nerdrum began to teach himself to paint in a post-modern style with Rembrandt and Caravaggio as influences. In 1965, he began a several-months study with the German artist Joseph Beuys. Nerdrum says that his art should be understood as kitsch rather than art as such. On Kitsch, a manifesto composed by Nerdrum, describes the distinction he makes between kitsch and art. Nerdrum's philosophy spawned the Kitsch movement among his students and followers, who call themselves kitsch painters rather than artists.

9. Richard Bergh (1858 - 1919)

With an HPI of 52.15, Richard Bergh is the 9th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Sven Richard Bergh (28 December 1858 – 29 January 1919) was a Swedish painter, art critic and museum manager. Despite many years in France, he remained unattracted to Impressionism, preferring instead the Naturalism of painters such as Jules Bastien-Lepage. He also rejected the idea of creating landscapes en plein aire.

10. Gustaf Cederström (1845 - 1933)

With an HPI of 51.63, Gustaf Cederström is the 10th most famous Swedish Painter. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Gustaf Olof Cederström (1845-1933) was a Swedish painter who specialized in historical scenes and portraits.

People

Pantheon has 30 people classified as Swedish painters born between 1695 and 1944. Of these 30, 2 (6.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Swedish painters include Odd Nerdrum, and Leonel Maciel. The most famous deceased Swedish painters include Carl Larsson, Hilma af Klint, and Alexander Roslin. As of April 2024, 6 new Swedish painters have been added to Pantheon including Martin van Meytens, Gustaf Lundberg, and Jeanna Bauck.