Axel Torneman

Education, travel, and early work

Johan Axel Gustaf Torneman was born on 28 October 1880 in Persberg, Varmland Sweden, the son of John Algot Torneman, an engineer at an explosives factory; his grandmother was the cookbook author Gustafva Bjorklund.

Torneman studied at Varmland School of Art in Goteborg in 1899 under Carl Wilhelmson, then toured the Nordic lands for a short while before traveling to study on the European continent in the years 1900–1905. In Europe, he first studied at the Kunstakademie Munchen (now the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Munchen), then went to Dachau to study under Adolf Holzel. In Munich he was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement and symbolism, Arnold Bocklin, Franz Stuck, and others.

Torneman grew to work in several modernist styles, was one of the first Swedish expressionist artists, and became a part of the international avant-garde in art after having embraced the then-new, more abstract art style in Germany and France during the early 1900s.

Career in France and Sweden

After leaving Germany, Torneman was active in Paris for four years, and also in the Breton village of Coudeville, Brittany. In Paris he studied at the Academie Julian, where after seeing van Gogh's and Gauguin's work, he brightened his palette. During his time in Paris, Torneman's friends were able to locate him by following the sketches he left in Paris cafes.

Torneman had a small studio in Paris at 7 rue de Bagneux. His night cafe paintings, based on studies in Place Pigalle, and a Paris nightclub popular with artists, Cafe du Rat Mort (Dead Rat Cafe), are two of Swedish modernism's most important works, though Torneman was less influenced by the French modernists than by the Germans. Three of these, his most famous paintings, Night Cafe I and II, and Trait, he painted in 1905 while in France. Torneman gained international stature in that same year, in the Salon d'Automne in Paris, for Trait I, and for Narragansett Cafe in 1906.

Returning from the continent, he moved to Stockholm, to Katarinavagen, next door to the studio of main competitor and critic of his work, Isaac Grunewald. Although another of his studios (on Sodermalm in Stockholm) was in the same building as the sculptor and fellow Varmlander Christian Eriksson, he did not work with Eriksson's group at the Rackstad colony in Arvika. Some of Torneman's contemporaries included Sigrid Hjerten (1885–1948), Gosta Von Hennigs (1866–1941) and Leander Engstrom (1886–1927).

Torneman was recognized with a gold medal at the U.S. Panama–Pacific International Exposition, in San Francisco in 1915. Torneman traveled intermittently in relation to his art (e.g., in 1912, to Venice), and toward the end of his life, he largely abandoned his early dark palette, and instead worked almost entirely in the brighter colors from his Paris days.

Mural work

In addition to his many paintings on canvas, at various times in his career Torneman produced illustrations for commercial projects, as well as painting frescos and large scale murals in public spaces, such as the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm City Hall, other Stockholm buildings such as Norra Latin, Ostermalms laroverk, Ostra Real, and the second chamber of the Parliament House. Torneman began the ceiling mural De elektriska strommarna (The electric currents), in 1918 in a lecture hall of the KTH. This very ambitions painting project was a subject of much discussion, and when completed was unanimously praised by critics, but disappeared from view until its rediscovery.

During the 1950s, the ceiling painting De elektriska disappeared, having been hidden behind a new ceiling during a renovation; with time, speculation arose that it had been destroyed during construction at its KTH site. After nearly 40 years, and its being near forgotten, De elektriska was found during 1993 repairs to its original building, intact, though a ventilation duct had been installed through it. The painting, still considered an important part of Swedish cultural heritage, was restored and moved—a thin layer of it was removed with great care and affixed to a new support in its new location—work that took a year and cost five-times as much as commission for the original artwork; it re-opened to the public in its new location, in 1994.

Personal life

Torneman married the Norwegian chanteuse Gudrun Hoyer-Ellefsen (1875-1963), whom he had met in Paris during his time there, in 1908. His son Algot Torneman, b. 1909, later became an artist in his own right, and it was he who Torneman pictured in his 1921 painting Algot med teddybjorn (Algot with teddybear). Axel Torneman died in Stockholm at 45, after several hospitalizations, from gastrointestinal causes (assigned at the time as bleeding ulcers).

Legacy

Torneman has been referred to as "[o]ne of the most important pioneers of Swedish art". Torneman's letters, some sketchbooks, paintings, and some of his personal belongings are preserved at the Kungliga biblioteket ("Royal Library"), in the National Library of Sweden, in Stockholm.

In 1965 the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm ("Modern Museum", a museum of modern art) held a major retrospective exhibition of his work, 40 years after his death.

Selected works