ArtistSwedish
Gerda Sprinchorn
0 active items
Gerda Sprinchorn was born on 29 April 1871 in Lisselberga, Västmanland, the daughter of an accountant. She trained first at the Technical School and Higher Arts and Crafts School in Stockholm from 1890 to 1893, then spent seven years at Konstakademien under sculptor John Börjesson. Her academic work earned swift recognition: the Hertigliga medal in 1899 for the sculpture 'Peri vid paradisets port', followed the next year by the Kungliga medal for 'Kleopatra', praised for its accomplished design and sense of movement.
Her artistic practice was shaped by travel and close observation of people. Trips to Dalarna in 1904, 1905, and 1907 produced a series of ethnographically detailed statuettes - 'Israelsfaster', depicting a seated woman from Leksand dressed for mourning and reading her hymnbook, and 'Gubbe och gumma', an elderly couple in traditional costume. A year in Italy in 1906 yielded 'Flickan med korg på huvudet' and the affectionately observed 'Nanina'. She found her niche in small-format sculpture that could sustain a career outside institutional commissions.
From 1907 onward, Sprinchorn lived and worked with the Finnish ceramist Ragnhild Godenius. Once the two had their own kiln in Rönninge, ceramics became central to Sprinchorn's output. Together they developed glazing experiments influenced by Japanese ceramics, which Sprinchorn applied to smaller sculptural forms including 'Flöjtblåsare' and 'Japanska', both acquired by Nationalmuseum. The Art Nouveau vocabulary - sinuous bronze relief, the figure as ornament - runs through her lamp 'Solen', cast by Herman Bergmans Gjuteri in Stockholm, one of her most striking applied-art objects.
She exhibited widely in Sweden and internationally - Stockholm, Gothenburg, Norrköping, Lund, and exhibitions in Munich, Helsinki, London, Vienna, Copenhagen, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Her only public monument, a statue of Carl Linnaeus at the old parsonage site in Stenbrohult, was unveiled in 1948, some four decades after she had completed the original model in 1907. She died in Stockholm on 21 March 1951.
In the Nordic auction market, Sprinchorn's work appears across a range of Swedish houses including Formstad, Metropol, and Helsingborgs Auktionskammare. The most significant result on Auctionist is 34,500 SEK for her Art Nouveau bronze table lamp 'Solen'. Wall reliefs and bronzes dated to 1897-1899 also appear regularly, while plaster sculptural studies tend to attract more modest results. Her ceramics and silver items represent a smaller share of the market, reflecting the relative rarity of her applied-art works at auction.