Karin Larsson,

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Bergöö, (3 October 1859 – 18 February 1928) was a Swedish artist and designer who collaborated with her husband,

Carl Larsson Carl Olof Larsson (; 28 May 1853 – 22 January 1919) was a Swedish painter representative of the Arts and Crafts movement. His many paintings include oils, watercolors, and frescoes. He is principally known for his watercolors of idyllic fam ...

, as well as being often depicted in his paintings.

Early life and education

Karin Bergöö was born in

Örebro Örebro ( , ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, sixth-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Örebro Municipality, and capital of the Örebro County. It is situated by the Närke Plain, near the lake Hjälmaren, a few kilometers in ...

and grew up in

Hallsberg Hallsberg () is a bimunicipal locality and the seat of Hallsberg Municipality, Örebro County, Sweden with 7,122 inhabitants in 2010. It is also partly located in Kumla Municipality. Overview This settlement grew up around a railway junction, an ...

, where her father, Adolf Bergöö, was a successful businessman. Her younger sister, Stina, married the English geologist

Francis Arthur Bather Francis Arthur Bather FRS (17 February 1863, in Richmond upon Thames – 20 March 1934) was a British palaeontologist, geologist and malacologist. His mother, Lucy Elizabeth Blomfield, was a daughter of Charles Blomfield, Bishop of London. His ...

. Karin showed early artistic talent, and after attending the Franska Skolan Ecole Française in Stockholm, studied at the ''Slöjdskolan'' (Handicrafts School; now

Konstfack Konstfack, or University of Arts, Crafts and Design, is a university college for higher education in the area of art, crafts and design in Stockholm, Sweden. History Konstfack has had several different names since it was founded in 1844 by the e ...

) and from 1877 to 1882 at the

Royal Swedish Academy of Arts The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts ( sv, Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna), commonly called the Royal Academy, is located in Stockholm, Sweden. An independent organization that promotes the development of painting, sculpture, archite ...

. After completing her studies there, she went to

Grez-sur-Loing Grez-sur-Loing (, literally ''Grez on Loing''; formerly Grès-en-Gâtinais, literally ''Grès in Gâtinais'') is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. Sights * The Church of Notre-Dame et Saint-Laurent ''(Church ...

, outside Paris, where there was a colony of Scandinavian artists, to continue painting."Karin Larsson – A Trendsetting Designer Long Before her Time"
, Carl Larsson Gården, Sundborn.

Life with Carl Larsson

In Grez-sur-Loing she met

; they fell in love and in 1883 returned to Stockholm and were married, returning together to Grez-sur-Loing, where their first child, Suzanne, was born in 1884. The following year, they returned to Sweden. In 1888 the Larssons went to Paris, on the suggestion of

Pontus Fürstenberg Pontus Fürstenberg (4 October 1827 – 10 April 1902) was a Swedish art collector and merchant from a Jewish family. He was married to Göthilda Magnus. Background Pontus Fürstenberg was born at Östra Hamngatan 26, in Gothenburg, Sweden ...

of Gothenburg, who wanted a large painting by Carl to add to his art collection. They left their two children with Karin's parents in Hallsberg, and upon their return a year later, decorated the Bergöös' new house. They then moved into ''Lilla Hyttnäs'', a ''stuga'' (

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...

) in

Sundborn Sundborn () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality situated in Falun Municipality, Dalarna County, Sweden with 762 inhabitants in 2010. The most famous resident was the painter Carl Larsson and his house (Little Hyttnäs) in Sundborn is a popular to ...

on the outskirts of

Falun Falun () is a city and the seat of Falun Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 37,291 inhabitants in 2010. It is also the capital of Dalarna County. Falun forms, together with Borlänge, a metropolitan area with just over 100,000 inhabita ...

where her father had been born. They enlarged it to accommodate their growing family and it became known as the Larsson farm. Karin larsson schommelstoel

Karin acted as a sounding-board and critic for Carl's work, in addition to being his primary model. With children and a large house to manage, she channelled her own artistic impulses into design. She designed and wove a large amount of the textiles used in the house, embroidered, and designed clothes for herself and the children and furniture which was created by a local carpenter. For example, the

pinafore A pinafore (colloquially a pinny in British English) is a sleeveless garment worn as an apron. Pinafores may be worn as a decorative garment and as a protective apron. A related term is ''pinafore dress'' (known as a ''jumper'' in Ameri ...

s worn by her and other women who worked at Sundborn, known as ''karinförkläde'' in Swedish, were a practical design by her. The style in which the house was decorated and furnished to Karin's designs, depicted in Carl's paintings, created a new, recognisably Swedish style:Marge Thorell
"Karin Bergöö Larsson: Mother, muse and artist"
'' The Local'', 9 December 2008. "In total contrast to the prevailing style of dark heavy furnishings, its bright interiors incorporated an innovative blend of Swedish folk design and fin-de-siècle influences, including Japonisme and Arts and Crafts ideas from Britain."Tina Manoli and Nicola Costaras
"Preparations for 'Carl and Karin Larsson: Creators of the Swedish Style'"
''Conservation Journal'',

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, 25, October 1997. In the "Swedish room" with which she replaced the little used

drawing room A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the 17th cent ...

, she removed curtains and placed furniture along the walls around a raised dais, creating a room within a room that was much used by the family, as shown in Carl's paintings, with a sofa in a corner for naps, shown in ''Lathörnet'' (Lazy Nook). Her textile designs and colours were also new: "Pre-modern in character they introduced a new abstract style in tapestry. Her bold compositions were executed in vibrant colours; her embroidery frequently used stylised plants. In black and white linen she reinterpreted Japanese motifs." She is buried in Sundborn cemetery. 1997,

in London showed her interior design at the Carl Larsson exhibition. 2009 she was highlighted with an exhibition in Sundborn. 2018, the exhibition ''Carl Larsson and His Home: Art of the Swedish Lifestyle'' at Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art, showed textiles made by Karin, and paintings of their home, made by Carl.

In popular culture

Larsson was the inspiration for Katherine Ashenburg's 2018 novel '' Sofie & Cecilia'' which is a fictionalized retelling of her life.

Paintings

References

External links