ArtistSwedish
Arvid Knöppel
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Arvid Knöppel was born on 25 April 1892 in Luleå, in the far north of Sweden, and spent his formative years developing an intimacy with Scandinavian wildlife that would shape his entire output as a sculptor, draftsman, and graphic artist. His father's friendship with the animal painter Bruno Liljefors gave the young Knöppel direct access to one of Sweden's most attentive observers of the natural world, an influence that would prove lasting.
Knöppel trained at Althins Målarskola under the sculptor Carl Fagerberg, then continued at the Tekniska Skolan and at Konstakademin in Stockholm. A travel scholarship in the 1920s took him to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, broadening his technical range without pulling him away from the subject matter he had already committed to: Nordic animals observed at close quarters. As early as 1916, while still studying, he exhibited a moose sculpture made from life studies at Skansen.
His working method depended on sustained proximity to his subjects. From 1944 until his death, Knöppel lived at Knöppelåsen, a property he established in Sälboda outside Arvika in Värmland that functioned both as his studio and as a small wildlife reserve. He kept bears, lynxes, deer, and moose on site, working from living models rather than anatomical diagrams. The result was a body of bronze sculpture in which posture and muscular tension convey the animal's internal state, whether a lynx mid-stalk or a doe turning toward a sound.
His solo exhibitions ran across Sweden and abroad between 1920 and 1940, and public recognition intensified in the 1950s. Roughly ten Swedish cities installed his bronze animal sculptures in public squares and parks, placing bears, deer, and lynxes in urban settings where they have remained in daily view for decades. He received Karlstad's civic cultural scholarship and, in 1969, Arvika city's cultural prize. His work was submitted to the sculpture competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where art competitions ran alongside athletic events.
Knöppel's work enters auction with some regularity and is held in the collections of both the Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the latter holding more than 80 works including 73 drawings. On Auctionist, 48 lots by Knöppel have traded, led by Karlstad Hammarö Auktionsverk where 27 of those appeared. The highest recorded result is 28,000 EUR for a bronze of a roe deer with kid. Bronze animal figures and patinated sculpture dominate the market category, with drawings and graphic works also appearing periodically.