ArtistSwedish
Jenny Nyström
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Every December, a red-clad figure with a white beard, rosy cheeks, and an expression of twinkling benevolence appears on Christmas cards, gift tags, and magazine covers across Sweden. This is the jultomte as Jenny Nyström imagined him, not the fearsome farm guardian of older folklore, but a gentle, grandfatherly presence surrounded by children, animals, and candlelit rooms. Nyström did not invent the Swedish Christmas gnome, but she gave him a face that became so embedded in national consciousness that Christmas without her tomtar remains, for many Swedes, simply unthinkable.
Jenny Eugenia Nyström (13 June 1854, 17 January 1946) was born in Kalmar, on Sweden's southeastern coast, the daughter of a school teacher and piano teacher who also served as cantor of the Kalmar Castle Church. When she was eight, the family moved to Gothenburg, where she began art studies at Göteborgs Musei-, Rit- och Målarskola in 1865. In 1873, she was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, where she studied for eight years. A scholarship then took her to Paris from 1882 to 1886, where she trained at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Julian.
Nyström's connection to the tomte began with Viktor Rydberg's tale "Lille Viggs äventyr på julafton" (Little Vigg's Adventures on Christmas Eve). She created illustrations for the story; Rydberg himself saw them and recommended their publication. The resulting book launched what would become Sweden's most prolific illustration career. Over the following decades, Nyström produced an enormous body of work, Christmas cards, book illustrations, magazine covers, paintings, that made her the country's most productive painter and illustrator.
She was also a trailblazer. Nyström became the first woman in Sweden to be awarded a royal medal for her historically-themed painting, recognition of an artistic ambition that extended well beyond commercial illustration. Her paintings of children, interiors, and portraits reveal a skilled and sensitive observer working in a naturalist tradition enriched by her Parisian training.
In 1887, she married medical student Daniel Stoopendaal, but when his poor health prevented him from completing his studies, Nyström became the family's sole breadwinner through her painting and illustration work. Their son Curt was born in 1893. This economic pressure, paradoxically, fuelled an extraordinary output that cemented her place in Swedish visual culture.
On the Nordic auction market, Nyström's original paintings command significant prices, with a tomte-and-squirrel painting reaching 57,000 SEK and oil paintings regularly selling between 14,000 and 26,000 SEK at houses including Kalmar Auktionsverk, Ekenbergs, and Stockholms Auktionsverk. Her watercolours and illustrations also trade actively. With 212 lots on Auctionist spanning paintings, drawings, and decorative objects, the market reflects both the fine art and popular dimensions of her legacy.