Arvid Knöppel

The animal sculptor Arvid Knöppel
Already as a boy, the interest in wild animals was significant for Arvid Knöppel, and he spent a lot of time in the woods and fields with his father and his father's good friend, Bruno Liljefors. As an artist, Knöppel's motifs would eventually primarily be the Nordic animals he had observed around him—roe deer and their fawns, playing bears, sneaking lynxes, or wandering moose. He became a master at depicting muscles and movement, and as an animal painter, he was both a realist and an impressionist. Arvid Knöppel's artistic education began at Althins Målarskola, where he studied under the sculptor Carl Fagerberg. He continued his art studies at the Tekniska Skolan and later at Konstakademin. Through a travel scholarship, he had the opportunity to continue his studies abroad, including in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the 1920s. From this time, he had numerous solo exhibitions, and his popularity grew. Today, his artworks adorn many cities in Sweden. From 1944 until his death in 1970, he resided at his farm Knöppelåsen outside Arvika in Värmland. There, he established a zoo where he kept several Nordic animals that he used as models for his drawings, graphic images, and sculptures. Gunnar Brusewitz wrote about Arvid Knöppel's art: "In his best animal studies, there is a kind of innocence in the line, as if one were drawn in the dawn light of creation, so unaware and pure and at the same time so relentlessly revealing."