Alexander John Drysdale

Louisiana Bayou Landscape with Oak Trees - Early 20th Century Wash on Paper

1916

A rare ink and watercolor drawing by Carl Palme, dated 1921 and signed “CP 21,” captures the intimate character of Positano’s narrow alleys. Measuring ca. 20 x 24 cm without frame. Inscribed on the back that it´s a preparatory study for a larger oil painting. Early 20th century works by Palme are scarce. Carl Palme (1879–1960): Painter, Printmaker, and Cosmopolitan Artist. He was born in Stockholm in 1879, the son of bank director Henrik Palme and Anna Lavonius. He grew up on the family estate of Svalnäs, now a guest home and senior residence. From an early age, Palme showed a sensitivity to both literature and art, interests that would later merge in his career as painter, draftsman, printmaker, and author. His artistic education began in London at the Slade School of Fine Art (1900–1901), where he was introduced to modern European currents. From 1902 to 1904, he studied in Munich at Wassily Kandinsky’s art school, absorbing early expressions of color and form. In 1907, Palme moved to Paris, where he became the first Swedish student of Henri Matisse. Together with fellow Scandinavian artists, he was instrumental in founding the Académie Matisse, a collective of young painters who rented a large studio in Paris. Matisse himself visited weekly, critiquing their work and shaping what would later become a decisive wave of modernism in Swedish art. Among the group were such notable names as Isaac Grünewald, Sigrid Hjertén, and Einar Jolin...

A graphite profile portrait drawing of a woman on paper by Johannes Collin (1873-1951), signed “Johannes Collin 98” and titled “Zigenerska”. This early and unusual work by Collin presents his interest in refined drawing and capturing character even at a modest scale. It dates from 1898, a formative moment for the artist when he was studying arts and stands out as a somewhat rare example of his graphic or drawing work rather than his better known small bronzes. Johannes Collin was born in 1873 in Skåne, south Sweden. After passing his matriculation at the Cathedral School in Lund in 1892, he studied at university in 1894–96 and then turned to art studies. From 1899 to 1901 he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, and from 1903 to 1905 he studied sculpture in Paris. Collin settled in Lund, Skåne and pursued a career as sculptor and poet. He died in 1951 in Lund. He was the son of a farmer and raised in the Skåne countryside. Early on he developed a sensitivity to form, figure, and expression, combining his sculptural ambitions with literary leanings (he later published a small volume of poetry). Collin appears to have had an individualistic personality: he moved in student and artistic circles in Lund, but also kept a modest, sometimes even eccentric public persona. In the mid-1930s, he increasingly turned to poetry and pared back his three-dimensional work. From his early years, he gradually developed into a sculptor working in bronze and patinated materials. Much of his work consists of small‐scale bronzes with an intensity of expression. One critic (in Kulturens yearbook) wrote of Collin that “the monumental is not in the work’s external dimensions but in the attitude … your small sculptures have an inner monumentality”. Collin exhibited his works in various venues: for example he took part in the Lund Exhibition (“Lundautställningen”) in 1907. Internationally, he showed works in Munich in 1909 and 1913, where his efforts were positively reviewed. A noteworthy retrospective or exhibition was held at the museum Kulturen in Lund, when a donation of Collin’s sculptures...