KunstenaarSwedish
Acke Åslund
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Horses were not simply a subject for Acke Åslund - they were a lifelong study. To understand them properly, he enrolled at the Veterinary College in Stockholm to learn anatomy from the inside out, and he spent long periods near Vången's Stallion Breeding Center in Jämtland, observing the North Swedish heavy horse in its working environment. The result was a body of work - oils, watercolors, drawings, and lithographs - that carries real physical weight, showing animals at rest, at labor, and in motion across the Swedish countryside.
Åslund was born on 27 October 1881 and trained with unusual breadth for his generation. He attended the Technical School in Stockholm from 1900, then the Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1904, and also completed Axel Tallberg's influential etching course, which shaped his approach to printmaking. Study trips to Germany, France, and Spain broadened his visual vocabulary, and his painting style developed the loose, atmospheric quality associated with Impressionism - without abandoning the structural precision his horse subjects demanded.
By 1924, Liljevalchs konsthall in Stockholm mounted a focused exhibition of his nature and horse paintings. The show was well received and is generally considered the turning point in his public reputation. Eight years later, his work was selected to represent Sweden in the painting event at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where the fine arts competitions ran alongside athletics. Åslund lived for many years in Södermalm, Stockholm, but maintained close ties to Östersund, where he exhibited regularly throughout his life. He died on 13 February 1958.
His work is held in several Swedish public collections, including Moderna Museet, Nordiska museet, Jamtli, Västergötlands Museum, and Kalmar Konstmuseum. The range of institutions reflects how broadly he was collected - from the national art establishment to regional museums in areas where working horses were still part of everyday life within living memory.
On the auction market, Åslund's work appears primarily as drawings and paintings, which matches the DB distribution of 17 drawing lots and 10 painting lots across 34 items. Sales have been concentrated at Helsingborgs Auktionskammare and Stadsauktion Sundsvall, with top prices reaching 2,100 SEK for a landscape with grazing cow, and 1,550 SEK for the lithograph series "Hästar på hemväg". The price range reflects the market for works on paper and smaller oils by well-documented but mid-tier Swedish artists of the early twentieth century.