Gunnar Mauritz Widforss

Background

Gunnar Mauritz Widforss was born on October 21, 1879 in the Norrmalm section of Stockholm, Sweden, sixth child in a family of thirteen. His father, Laurentius Mauritz Viktor Widforss, was a shopkeeper; his mother, Blenda Carolina (Weidenhayn) Widforss, was the granddaughter of an engraver at the Swedish mint.

Education

The boy cared little for regular school and less for his father's business. Intending to become a muralist, he studied in the Institute of Technology in Stockholm from 1896 to 1900.

Career

After graduating he began the wanderings which took him to Russia, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Africa and finally the United States in search of subjects in nature for his brush and palette. Important recognition first came from the Paris Salon which exhibited two of his paintings in 1912. Among early patrons were Anders Zorn, King Gustav V of Sweden, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Widforss first came to the United States in 1905. Meeting no encouragement, he returned to Sweden three years later, where his work soon became popular. He came back to the United States again in 1921 on a projected trip to the Orient, but his journey terminated in California whose natural grandeur immediately captivated him. The next year while at work with water colors in Yosemite National Park, he met Stephen T. Mather who, as director of the national parks, was at once enthusiastic about Widforss' handling of the outdoors and urged him to make the national parks his special province. Thereafter until his death the quiet Swede worked zealously under the open sky of the great West - in the canyons of the Colorado and Yellowstone, in Zion and Brice canyons, in the Kaibab forest, at Mesa Verde, Taos, Crater Lake and along the Monterey coast. Whether his subject was drifted mountain snow, the giant cacti of the desert or sunlight filtering through redwoods, he reproduced it with remarkable accuracy and feeling. A careful draftsman, he familiarized himself with geological formations and the architecture of nature generally. His great love was the Grand Canyon and so that its country might become his he became a citizen of the United States, on June 3, 1929. In "hermitlike simplicity", he spent his last years on the rim of that vast chasm, seeking, from many vantage points, to record its many moods in water color and oil. A collection of these studies was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. , in December 1924, and was described by the director as the "finest things of the kind that have come out of the west". The artist's work followed devotees of the national parks into all parts of the United States. His paintings illustrated Harold Symmes' Songs of Yosemite (1923), and, as interest in these great playgrounds developed, the Literary Digest and other magazines reproduced representative studies on their covers. In 1928 Widforss won first prize in the American-Scandinavian exhibition in New York. He also won a first prize of the California Water Color Society, of which he was a member. Soon after a widely viewed exhibit in St. Louis, Mo. , in the fall of 1934, he died of a heart attack at the steering wheel of his loaded automobile at Grand Canyon, Ariz. , as he prepared to leave the altitude of the rim for a lower elevation as directed by a physician. Friends buried him under the great pines in the little cemetery at Grand Canyon.

Achievements

• Widforss is most frequently associated with landscapes from American National Parks. His estate consisted of 150 paintings of the natural wonders which he knew so intimately and loved so deeply.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Gunnar Mauritz Widforss Temple of Sinawava - Zion National park 87x72 Kitchen

    (A genuine temple of sinawava - zion national park by gunn...)

  • Wall Art Print Entitled Gunnar MAURITZ Widforss Sweden USA 1879-1934 Vie by Celestial Images | 16 x 10

    (e with a 365 day workmanship guarantee. Inks used are lat...)

Connections

Widforss had never married.

Father:

Mauritz Widforss

Mother:

Blenda (Weydenhayn) Widforss