ArtistaSwedish
John Bauer
3 oggetti attivi
John Albert Bauer (1882-1918) died in 1918, but his art continues to shape the Swedish cultural imagination. Born in Jönköping on June 4, 1882, he grew up near the forests of Småland. His childhood spent exploring dense woods and listening to his maternal grandmother's folk tales inspired the imagery that would define his art: moss-covered boulders, ancient spruces filtering pale light, and creatures from a world predating human settlement.
At sixteen, Bauer moved to Stockholm to study at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He applied in 1898 but was deemed too young, despite being qualified. After two years at Caleb Althin's painting school, he entered the Academy in 1900. There he met Ester Ellqvist, a fellow art student, whom he married in 1906. The couple traveled to Italy in 1908, visiting Volterra, Florence, Siena, Rome, and Capri. Italian Renaissance painting profoundly influenced his sense of composition.
Bauer's most significant contribution is his work for Bland tomtar och troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls), an annual Christmas anthology of Swedish fairy tales first published in 1907. He illustrated the volumes from 1907 to 1915, creating watercolors and pen drawings that shaped how generations of Swedes visualized trolls, forest spirits, and brave children venturing into enchanted woods. Among his most recognized works is "Ännu sitter Tuvstarr kvar och ser ner i vattnet" (1913). His trolls are not purely menacing; they are heavy, weathered, sometimes melancholic figures that seem to emerge from the landscape itself.
In the autumn of 1918, Bauer, Ester, and their three-year-old son Bengt were moving from Jönköping to Stockholm. On the night of November 20, the steamer Per Brahe capsized in a storm on Lake Vättern. All 24 people on board drowned. Bauer was 36 years old.
The Jönköpings Läns Museum holds over 1,000 of his works. On Auctionist, 109 items have been recorded across multiple categories. Bukowskis Stockholm leads with 28 lots, followed by Crafoord Auktioner Stockholm with 12. Original works command significant prices: "Pojke på stol" reached 29,500 SEK, three signed troll lithographs sold for 27,000 SEK, and "Prinsessan och småtrollen" achieved 13,011 EUR.