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Important Winter Sale presents Gustaf Fjaestad

Bukowskis presents Hoarfrost at dawn by Gustaf Fjaestad at this season's largest live auction – Important Winter Sale.

Few artists, like Gustaf Fjaestad, have succeeded in capturing the beauty of the Swedish landscape dressed in winter. In his paintings, the artist conveyed an almost supernatural interpretation of the pristine Swedish nature’s aesthetic qualities and values of beauty. One of Fjaestad’s biographers, Agneta Fjaestad Nordmark, speaks of “a sense of intimacy,” “as if this very place were ‘one’s own’ private spot.” It is easy to agree with this observation when looking at the painting offered in this auction. Somewhere at the intersection of nature lyricism and symbolism, the forest motifs of Värmland are depicted with artistic precision and rich detail.

After Fjaestad’s death in 1948, the columnist “Felix” wrote in Arvika Nyheter: “With his exquisite masterpieces he had, over his long life, given joy. He discovered the beauty of winter, and all his art, filled with genuine atmosphere, has enchanted us…” The quote aptly summarises the inherent qualities of Fjaestad’s artistic output.


Gustaf Fjaestad painted his and his countrymen’s love of the cold for the rest of the world, and he could do it as no one else could. In a letter to his wife Maja, he describes his profound inspiration on a winter’s day: “The snow lies so beautifully on the ground, and my God, how beautiful the forest is.” A critic in L’Art Décoratif described Fjaestad’s winter motifs as follows: “Here we have the recurring Swedish winter in a very limited area, the winter one endures day by day and does not just see from a sleigh. The winter that is as passionately loved as the sun is loved by the southerner, and which hardens body and soul as Fjaestad himself has been hardened. Is this not the essence of Sweden?”


To the Catalogue



The work will be sold at Important Winter Sale

Estimate: 400 000 - 425 000 SEK

Viewing December 4–9, Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Open weekdays 11 AM to 6 PM CET, weekends 11 AM to 4 PM CET

Live auction December 10–12, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm

Read more about Important Winter Sale



View all of the Works by Gustaf Fjaestad at Important Winter Sale



Requests & condition reports


Louise Wrede
Stockholm
Louise Wrede
Head of Art Department, Specialist Contemporary Art, Private Sales
+46 (0)739 40 08 19
Andreas Rydén
Stockholm
Andreas Rydén
Head Specialist, Art, Deputy Managing Director
+46 (0)728 58 71 39