Multi Media Expert

"Maja von Heijne"

Etching, 1911

Anders Zorn

I am very excited about a major retrospective in Paris this fall, featuring one of my favorite artists, Anders Zorn. I have written about Zorn before, but I have not had the opportunity to see many of his works in person. I hope to remedy that soon: I already have my ticket to the retrospective!

"Une Premiere"
Gouache
Anders Zorn, 1888

One thing that fascinates me about master artists is that they seem to delight in many different media. Zorn was no exception to this phenomenon. He was a wonderful watercolorist, as well as a virtuoso painter. He was also known for his talent as a printmaker,
primarily etchings. And he was a sculptor to boot. The exhibit in Paris will also include his photographs, which are claimed to be of the highest caliber. It's clear that Zorn enjoyed, and excellent, at working in all media. One reviewer has called him "the world's finest under-appreciated artist".

"Virginia P. Bacon"
Oil
Anders Zorn

I understand that Zorn completed many watercolors depicting his travels to England, Germany, Spain, and Venice. I can't wait to see them! But what I really want to see are the paintings. Zorn was quite  a gutsy painter, following the "lay it and leave it" approach. One critic (Duncan Hannah) has written this about Zorn's portraits of women: "Women's dresses proved a field day for Zorn's swashbuckling brushwork: brusque, choppy brushwork, hacked in at great speed, with an unerring grasp of tone and pitch, verisimilitude hiding in its rebellious energy." This is something I must see!

"Couturieres"
Oil on Canvas
Anders Zorn, 1894

Zorn himself spoke of the difficulty of painting. He talked about "the concentration of the mind and calculations required to achieve the right nuance of color on the brush, which must often, with one stroke, express so much." The great masters may make it LOOK easy, but we all know that many, many years of training the eye and hand go into putting down that one brushstroke that must say so much.

I am hoping that the exhibition catalog will be available in English. I fear that it will be French only--another reason to polish up my rusty language skills!