The painting "Ensamhet vid livsgränsen/Einsamkeit am lebensgrenze" by Arthur Segal was formerly in the collection of the prominent Swedish art collector and patron Hjalmar Gabrielson, Gothenburg. Gabrielson began collecting art while working as a postal clerk in Gothenburg between 1909 and 1921, but it was primarily through successful property dealings in Sweden and Germany that he created the financial foundation for building an extensive and internationally oriented collection.

Gabrielson’s was focused on early modernism, with an emphasis on art from the Nordic countries, Germany, France and Russia. The collection came to include works by several of the most significant artists of the 20th century, including Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Braque, Léger, Chagall, Willumsen, Kandinsky, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Johannes Itten, Alexej von Jawlensky and Willi Baumeister.

A significant part of the collection, particularly works associated with Der Sturm and the constructivist avantgarde, was acquired in 1922–1923 with the assistance of the artist Arthur Segal. The Romanian-German artist was active in Berlin and was a member of the progressive Novembergruppe. Through his contacts with the international avant-garde and the Bauhaus, Segal helped introduce contemporary European modernism to Gabrielson’s collection.

The collection attracted considerable attention during Gabrielson’s lifetime and was exhibited on several occasions. Parts of it were presented at Valandhuset in Göteborg in October 1923 in connection with the exhibition Der Sturm International Kunst, and at Konstakademien in Stockholm in 1928. In 1949, the year of Gabrielson’s death, the collection was exhibited at Göteborgs konstmuseum.

At the time, Gabrielson’s collection was considered one of Sweden’s most significant private art collections. His celebrated collection of self-portraits, comprising works by many of the leading Nordic artists of the period, is today preserved at Göteborgs konstmuseum. Most of the international modernist section of the collection, however, was dispersed after his death and found its way into private collections and institutions around the world.

The fact that Arthur Segal’s work formed part of Gabrielson’s collection thus places it within one of the more significant Swedish collecting contexts associated with the breakthrough of international modernism in the 1920s.