Harald Wiberg

From 1939 onward he worked as an illustrator for Svensk Jakt, the magazine of the Swedish Hunters' Association, and through that collaboration built a sustained visual language for elk, hares, waterfowl, and other Scandinavian species rendered in oil, watercolor, and ink. The work required the same kind of patient fieldwork as the sport it depicted, and Wiberg was known for the anatomical accuracy and behavioral specificity that runs through his animal compositions, qualities that earned him a bronze medal at a wildlife art exhibition in Düsseldorf and, in 1971, a prize at a world championship for wildlife art in Budapest.

The encounter that made him internationally known came through a childhood experience. Wiberg had seen a tomte, the small, bearded gnome of Swedish folk tradition who watches over farms and their animals, at the age of four, and he spent the rest of his life returning to that figure in paint and ink. In 1957 the poem "Tomten," adapted by Astrid Lindgren from Viktor Rydberg's nineteenth-century verse, was published in the Norwegian children's magazine Klumpe Dumpe with Wiberg's illustrations. The book edition followed in 1960, published by Rabén & Sjögren, and became an immediate success in multiple countries. A second collaboration with Lindgren, "Tomten and the Fox," appeared in 1966.

He also wrote and illustrated his own Tomten book, "Gammaldags jul" (published in English as "Christmas at the Tomten's Farm"), and illustrated approximately twenty books on animals, hunting, fishing, and outdoor life. He illustrated Lindgren's "Christmas in the Stable" (1962), for which the pair received the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1970. In 1976 he received the Elsa Beskow plaque, awarded by the Swedish Library Association, for his illustrations in "Den stora snöstormen" (1975).

Wiberg's tomte motif moved across media. Royal Copenhagen produced a Christmas service based on his imagery that became a collector's staple in Scandinavia, with the pieces now appearing regularly at auction. He is represented in the collections of Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and Kalmar Art Museum, among other institutions. He died on 15 August 1986 in Falköping.

At auction, Wiberg's work surfaces across a wide range of formats, oil paintings, mixed-media works, drawings, and the Royal Copenhagen ceramics bearing his tomte motifs. The top result in the Nordic market is "Sträckande Ejdrar," a mixed-media work sold for 6,000 SEK, while the Royal Copenhagen Christmas service pieces consistently reach 4,000-4,400 SEK. Kalmar Auktionsverk handles the largest share of his estate material, reflecting his strong roots in the region where he was born. Internationally, his auction record stands at approximately 3,400 USD (Norrlands Auktionsverk, 2021) for "Hjortar på åkermark."