Sigurd Swane

Sigurd Swane, whose first wife Christine and son Lars as well as his daughters Gerda and Hanne were also painters, studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art at København. He was influenced by the work of Fauvism when he stayed at Paris in 1907 and, after his return home, began a series of paintings of woodlands, viewed from the interior, and conspicuous for the use of green, yellow and blue. He became one of the most famous colourists in Denmark. In his portraits Swane often used a setting with a background of woods to create an intimate atmosphere.

He later lived on a farm in the country and started a long-term series of landscape paintings and flower compositions. From 1947 he often painted in Portugal. In more than 70 years of artistic activity, he created an extensive and significant life’s work.

In an early version of the 1924 art catalogue, only three works by Swane are listed, but all without a title, only with the label “sketch”.