John Bauer

In the catalogue for Waldemarsudde's major exhibition "Trollbunden – John Bauer och den magiska naturen" (2020), the frontispiece is adorned with the watercolour "Ut i vida världen" from 1907.

In this auction, Bukowskis is pleased to present a similar motif, painted in oil on canvas. A young nobleman has paused with his horse and gazes towards the sky. The powerful, robust horse is beautifully adorned with decorative harness, and the curls of its forelock are embellished with green leaf tendrils. The boy's golden sword forms a vertical line that anchors the pair against the horizon. The young boy and the strong white horse are recurring themes in Bauer's fairy-tale world, notably in "A Knight Rode Forth" from 1915 and "The Boy Who Was Never Afraid," 1912.

The line work connects the entire composition, which is evident in the depiction of the outline of the horse, the boy's clothing, and the ornamental details. In the current painting, the paint is so thin that the swirling, rhythmic lines shine through. The author Harald Schiller has described Bauer's fascination with the artist Carl Larsson during his early years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Students at the turn of the century had three role models to relate to: Anders Zorn, Richard Bergh, and Carl Larsson. Schiller writes that Carl Larsson's art captivated Bauer with "irresistible" force. For a couple of years, he was strongly dependent on Larsson – the master of line, which is evident in the work in this auction.

The painting bears a label on the reverse with the title The Fairy Tale Prince, and the motif is closely related – both in composition and colour palette – to Bauer's larger painting "Sagoprinsessan" from 1905. It depicts the art student Ester Ellqvist, who two years later became John Bauer's wife. The portrait is executed on Tjockö in the Stockholm archipelago. Just like in the auction's painting, the artist has placed his main character on a rocky ledge, surrounded by a backdrop of birches. Dressed in a red cloak, with a lily of the valley in her hand, the princess gazes up towards the sky.

John Bauer's breakthrough came in 1907 through his illustrations for the fairy tale collection "Bland Tomtar och Troll", an annual Christmas collection published by Åhlén & Åkerlund in Sweden..

What made Bauer's breakthrough so evident was how he managed to create an entirely new visual language for the Swedish fairy tale tradition. His images combined the mystical and the Nordic: dark forests, heavy trolls, dreamlike princesses, and solitary wanderers. Unlike earlier, more romantic or decorative fairy tale images, Bauer introduced a suggestive, sometimes almost frightening atmosphere – but always with a poetic and human tone. It was with these images that he quickly became one of Sweden's most beloved illustrators.