Esaias Thorén

In the spring of 1927, Sven Jonson and Esaias Thorén started an advertising agency named Modern Reklam, which became a meeting point for, among others, Egon Östlund and the young Halmstad painters in the emerging Halmstad group. The composition in the auction's still life is executed at the intersection of Léger's post-cubism and the forthcoming entirely non-figurative planar geometric painting around 1930. The colours in the painting are balanced with various shades of brown, contrasted by primary colours in bright red, blue, and yellow. The geometric, cylindrical, and spherical forms of the pots contrast with the more organic s-shapes of the fish. The painting was executed in 1928, the same year that GAN once again stayed in Halmstad, an art-historical meeting that left a lasting impression on the very talented younger artist colleague Thorén.