ArtistSwedish
John Jon-And
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John Erik Algot Jon-And was born on March 8, 1889 in the Haga district of Gothenburg. His father, Olle Johan Andersson, was a master builder, and the family background gave no obvious path toward art. He trained under Carl Wilhelmson before an early trip to Germany and England in 1908-09 exposed him to new currents in European painting - a first reorientation that would soon be followed by a far more decisive one.
In 1913, Jon-And traveled to Paris alongside his future wife Agnes Cleve. The visit proved transformative. Cubism was at its height, and Jon-And made direct contact with Le Fauconnier, one of the movement's Montparnasse figures. He returned to Sweden in 1914 as one of the country's first committed modernists, working in a mode that fused expressionist color with cubist structure - a combination that neither movement produced individually and that gave his best work its particular tension. Agnes Cleve developed along her own distinct trajectory, but the couple's shared studio years shaped both careers. Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter visited them in Bohuslän in 1917.
By the early 1920s Jon-And had moved from pure painting toward a dual career as portraitist and stage designer. Back in Gothenburg between 1922 and 1927, he designed stage sets and costumes for Karl Gerhard's productions at Lorensbergsteatern, and contributed to the theater's restaurant decoration alongside Cleve. His 1922 portfolio "28 Croquis" documenting Lorensbergsteatern performers became one of his most distinctive graphic works. He received portrait commissions from major figures in Swedish cultural life, including King Gustav V, and was employed as stage artist at the Opera in Stockholm with the title of hovmålare (court painter).
In the years before his death he returned to oil painting, producing a series of landscape studies from Bohuslän characterized by bright, direct color. He died unexpectedly on November 2, 1941 in Stockholm while traveling to the Opera. A large memorial exhibition was held at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm in 1944, followed by shows in Gothenburg. He is represented in most major Swedish museum collections.
On the auction market, Jon-And's work appears primarily through Auktionshuset STO Bohuslän, reflecting the regional significance of his late landscape work, along with Göteborgs Auktionsverk and Stockholms Auktionsverk. Among the 25 items tracked on Auctionist, paintings and drawings appear in roughly equal numbers alongside prints. Top prices reach 18,000 SEK for a Bohuslän oil study, with the 1922 Lorensbergsteatern croquis portfolio achieving 1,800 EUR - the latter suggesting that his graphic theatre work carries particular interest among collectors.