Bror Lindh

(Frykeruds Församling 1877 – 1941 Grava Församlingshem, Skåre)

Vinternatt (Winter’s night)

c.1905

oil on canvas

21 ¾ x 17 ¼ in (55 x 44 cm)

Provenance:

Sweden, private collection

Bror Lindh was born in 1877 in Frykerud in Värmland, a county on the border of Sweden and Norway. His family, originally named Jansson, had been decorative painters for many generations and it was Bror’s father that taught him initially, helping him to decorate homes and paint furniture. By the late 1890s Bror had established a shop in Arvika, in Värmland, where he offered his services as a decorative painter. It was here that he met Gustaf Fjæstad, who had recently moved to Arvika and gave him lessons, encouraging Bror to acquire an artistic education. In 1899 Bror was accepted as a student at the Artists' Association's painting school in Stockholm, it was here that he studied alongside Helmer Osslund, along with other promising young artists, and was taught by the influential Richard Bergh.

During this time in Stockholm he fell deeply in love with Elsa Klein, a fashion journalist for one of city’s newspapers. Despite his advances, his affections were not reciprocated, Bror was left devastated, and heart broken. He returned to Värmland where, together with his close friend Walter Hülphers, he decided to live a monastic rural life, cut off from the developments of the modern world, sustaining themselves mostly on rye flour porridge. 

After four years of living the life of a hermit, from 1905 onwards he started to develop his own style, painting a series of Vinternatt or winter night paintings, of which this painting belongs. Bror was an active member of the Rackstad Colony, a group of young artists, including Gustav Fjæstad, his wife Maja Fjæstad, Fritz Lundstrom, Alfred Ekstam to name but a few. A group of young artists and crafts people who relocated to Lake Racken, near Arvika, to live and produce work based on the surrounding landscapes.

Although heavily influenced by his studies with Gustaf Fjæstad, his handling of snow and ice, Lindh’s Winter’s night is characterised by a more idiosyncratic light which pierces the darkness of the deep Swedish winter. The warm candlelight from the small window of the cottage stands resolute against the enveloping darkness surrounding it. The light can be seen to be challenging this darkness, as it radiates heat into the cold with dashes of colour orbiting the source. This radiation of light stands stark against the field of blues that portray the bitter night. This subtle gradation of the blue colour field surrounding the cottage creates a deep perspective within the painting, with the cool light of the sky shimmering off the water of Lake Racken and into the distance. This view is most likely from the shores of Lake Racken, in a village called Rackstad, where many of the artists colony lived in traditional falu red cottages.

In the 1920s, Brother Lindh withdrew completely from all social life and lived in isolation, much as he had done in his early twenties. He would remain living this hermitical way of life for his remaining twenty years, passing away in 1941.